Back when Pittsburgh's newspapers were infinitely healthier than they are today, I was the weirdo in those offices who'd track how many online page views my articles would get. That was based on advice given to me at the Athens Olympics by Stephen A. Smith -- yes, that one -- aimed at always being aware of my value to my company, and it obviously proved to be pretty prescient on his part.
That was in 2004, of course. This venture was born in 2014. And now, in 2024, I can still recall, vividly, that the largest number of page views I ever got for any piece at either the Post-Gazette or the Tribune-Review was 24,000. The column was nothing special, just something off a Steelers game, but that was the peak. And from there, it was the number Dali and I used in attempting to justify leaving newspapers, reasoning that if I could get less than half of that to pay for my work -- 10,000 was what we computed -- we'd be just fine.
This past week, my column on the Penguins trading Jake Guentzel achieved 63,436 page views, an all-time platform record.
It was read by 32,894 different readers.
For real.
And the Friday Insider yesterday, revealing exclusively what really happened between Kenny Pickett and Mike Tomlin in Seattle on New Year's Eve, is pacing to catch or exceed that.
Now, that's partly because the content's now open to everyone -- just it was with those papers -- albeit caked with advertising for those consuming it for free. But it's partly because we're experiencing growth in the early part of this year that we haven't seen since a certain Kid raised the Stanley Cup:
• March has us at 2,589,610 page views at the midpoint. If we achieve 5 million, it'll be the first of those in the post-COVID era. And I'll be damned if it isn't No. 1 in the Pittsburgh market, though that'd require everyone else being as open as we are about this sort of thing. We're proud of these numbers. Nothing to hide.
• Our individual team Feeds have become so popular, so frequently visited that -- and this floors me -- our Steelers Feed now accounts for two-thirds as many entry points as our home page. Think about that. If you open the app, you're automatically at the home page and still need to tap the Steelers logo to open that Feed. Well, so many people have presumably bookmarked us via the Feed that it's become their first stop.
• We achieved 5,000-plus live simultaneous connections one night last week, marking the highest such total ever on BoomPress software. (And we didn't crash!) That's truly Coverage that Connects.
• My Daily Shot of Steelers podcasts -- even omitting the ones I do on Penguins and Pirates -- now have an average audience each morning of 25,000-plus listeners, with more than half of that on YouTube. That's ... ridiculous. I barely lift a pink finger in creating these, and I'm not ashamed to say that. I can do 10 of these in the time it takes to write one column. But they've become almost equal to the writing part of this business in terms of revenue and, best of all, they've brought, really, a whole new group of people to our content.
• And that's to say nothing of the live Ramon Foster Show, which is second in our ranking but growing big-time. The episode yesterday had 20,740 views.
• To try to put those into more identifiable terminology, either of these shows would be very highly rated within the market if they were airing on old-school TV or radio, with the main being difference that these pay because this is where advertising's going. As yet another parallel, way more people watched yesterday's Ramon Show than anything I'd done in the past decade on local TV.
Thing is, the market's what you make of it. Our market's always been fans of the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates wherever they might be. And the more intense, the more knowledgeable, the better. Like cutting through the riff-raff to get to the real ones.
It's easy to say it's our 10th year and this should've been expected, but man, think about where it started.
Crazy, right?
INSIDE THE WORKS
• An unusual favor to ask: If you believe in my reporting, feel free to share that in the Insider comments from time to time. That forum's becoming more toxic with each passing week, and I'm tired of it. Tired of being called a liar or even having it implied. Tired of being asked to explain why someone else might have different reporting than I do, as if that's somehow my responsibility. If it keeps up the way it has, I'll scrap the feature. Not worthwhile. I can just do endless game columns, if that's what everyone wants. It'd certainly be easier.
• I'll be at PPG Paints Arena this weekend, after which I'll travel to Newark, N.J., for the Tuesday game against the Devils. At month's end, I'll be back in Florida to cover the Pirates' season-opening series, March 28-31, in Miami.
• Grateful that so many of you have followed through on our request to support us without spending a penny, by simply leaving us good reviews on outside platforms. There've been hundreds of reviews already. For anyone who hasn't yet, feel free to add your own on our Google listing, our Apple or Spotify podcast channels, our YouTube channels for the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates and, last but definitely not least, our own app, whether it's the Apple or Android version. And again, thank you!
• Reminder: Our 10th anniversary is July 23 at the Downtown HQ/shop. We've already heard from quite a few of you planning to attend, including some from well out of town. For anyone interested in the latter, know that the Pirates and Cardinals have a three-game series at PNC Park at that time, so it's a nice double-dip.
• Everyone still loving being ad-free? If you're not there yet, it's only for paying subscribers. If you aren't subscribed yet or if your subscription's expired: this is our new subscribe page. Make sure you're logged in, tap on the link, and thumb down to the bottom for the SUBSCRIBE button to buy/renew at the monthly or annual level. We also have discounts, as ever, for student subscriptions and senior subscriptions.
• For anyone asking, yeah, there's still a subscription level. It's the level where there are zero ads, first and foremost. It's an infinitely better experience. It's also the level at which readers have access to our Live Qs, our commenting platforms, our in-person meetings and many other perks. We feel it's a really good value.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page-view numbers for the past week were an all-time record 1,293,084, with an also-record 81,622 unique users over the most recent full seven-day span, March 8-14. Our most-read original piece was the aforementioned column on the Jake trade, at 63,436.
• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 99,338, plus another figure we can't access yet on a second platform, and our YouTube video views for the past week were 116,562.
• Our company social media accounts are at 53,745 followers on X, 40,423 on Facebook, 30,123 on YouTube, 14,958 on Instagram ... and already 4,101 on the new Threads!
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• We're often asked about our HQ/shop merch being available online, and yes, it's right here.
• Anything you need, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
