When I founded Protagonist Soccer, I wasn’t 100% sure it would be successful. Like many of the guys who write for the site, I’ve written for a lot of blogs that went nowhere, quickly. It’s hard to be creative. It’s hard to attract attention from the public. It’s hard to keep things going, especially if it doesn’t take off right away. But that’s never stopped me from trying so we started up the site.

I will also tell you that I never expected to make any money from the site. So far that has held true. Every advertiser dollar (plus a lot more of my personal dollars) has gone into the various projects and site management costs. While, most likely, you don’t know me in real life, I’m just a regular dude with a wife, kid, and a mortgage. I live in El Paso and really love local soccer. This is a passion project for me. I someday hope it pays off financially, but I’m ok knowing that it probably won’t.

As the site kicked off, we had close to 20 writers committed to generating content. We also had three editor types (we called ourselves Founders). Within a month and a half we were down to nine writers and one founder. One of the nine was promoted to assistant editor, Joshua Duder. We also have a copy editor, David Baker, who reads about 90% of what we post for grammar and structure (not this one!). Our writers, who are from all over the country are: Dominic Bisogno, Phil Baki, Steven Ramirez, Brian Burden, Aarik Long, Joaquin Colon-Nava, Jason Weintraub, and Shawn Laird. You’ve read their work and know how much they appreciate lower league soccer.

As we’ve pushed forward with the site, we’ve strained to find a way to pay the guys doing the heavy lifting. Advertising may eventually offer an avenue, but it’s not there yet. With no other obvious options, we’ve come up with this. Today, we are launching a Patreon. We will not be putting in a paywall, because they suck. Instead, we’re asking our readers to consider supporting the writers who are producing the content. I will not be taking a cut from funds produced from this endeavour. The money will be split evenly between the active writers and our copy editor.

My experience with Patreon accounts hasn’t been good in the past. “Content is free so why pay” seems to be how we all operate now. But I also trust the readers of this site. You all know the struggle of trying to stay afloat and you also know that: if everyone contributes a little, it will go a long way. So I’m asking our readers to sign up for $5 a month. Less than a latte. Less than ticket to a single soccer match. Less than a quarter a day. If you do that, we’ll send you a cool sticker and a newsletter each week. There are a couple of more expensive tiers, but, if you don’t have the money for those, don’t worry about it. Give what you can.

This is a direct call to fans of lower league soccer to support an independent media source dedicated to the sport. I’m asking for you to show appreciation to our writers. Thank you.

This is our Patreon.

-Dan Vaughn