According to my Marriott Rewards account, I've now spent 2,217 nights of my life at one of their hotels. I'll save you the math: That's a little more than six full years.
Yeah. I know.
But that's the job. Or, at least, that's the job when it's done right.
If I wanted to sit at home or in our office and pontificate on the Penguins, Steelers and Pirates, chances are pretty good most readers wouldn't mind all that much. Not right away, anyway. But they sure would over time. When I wouldn't be there, where the action is, where the questions can be asked, to substantiate what I'm writing. When I wouldn't be able to add vital color to the descriptions. When I wouldn't be able to snap pics or videos or see things that aren't shown on TV. When I wouldn't be able to share in the overall experience.
Check this out:
That map up there represents everywhere I've been in the past year, from May 2018 to May 2019. That's a total of 32 cities plus Pittsburgh. In many of those cases, I've been to those cities more than once. And that's just in the past year.
We all do this, of course. We cover three teams, and we don't miss a single game, a single practice, a single availability, a single league event that has one our teams' officials at work. Dale Lolley, John Perrotto, everyone we have goes wherever they're needed, often with myself or another of us in tow. We send three to all Steelers games. We send three to all playoff games. We send three to all openers. We send two sometimes just because we feel like it.
There aren't many outlets left that do this. On the Pirates' just-completed trip to Los Angeles and Arlington, Texas, the only Pittsburgh outlets traveling to cover were us and the Post-Gazette. And the number who'll additionally, frequently send a staff photographer -- Matt Sunday -- is just us.
It's expensive. Our travel budget approaches six figures, as with most news outlets' sports departments. But we think it's worth it, and we hope you do, too.
LIFETIMES LEFT: 65
We've sold 35 Lifetime Lunatic subscriptions -- including one to my man Bill Maloni just yesterday! -- so 65 remain toward our new cap of 100, combined with the original 500. There's no plan to sell more in the foreseeable future. It costs $299. If you'd like one, buy it right here. If you're an existing subscriber and want to go Lifetime, do the same thing, then email us at Help@DKPittsburghSports.com to let us know you did. We'll refund the remainder of your existing account.
VETERANS COUNT NEARS 100
Our new Veterans Challenge, inspired by Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club, puts forth a goal of connecting 1,000 military vets with free annual subscriptions in 2019. We’ve sold 98. Josh has pledged to buy 10 a month himself. Here’s where to contribute. If you have any questions, email us at Help@DKPittsburghSports.com.
FROM THE EDITOR
When people find out my profession, they often ask what I do during the offseason. I typically reply that there is no offseason in the NFL.
And really, there isn't. But that's been especially true of this year. The Steelers' season might have ended in the first week of January, but there was constant turmoil with a receiver who shall remain nameless and then the draft, coaching hirings and firings, owners meetings, etc.
This week, the team's rookies will report for their mini-camp. After that, the rest of the team will resume their OTAs, the sessions that are open to the media. Then, it's on to mini-camp and a few weeks off before training camp begins.
It's really not that much different in the other sports, as well. Covering a pro franchise is a year-round venture. And, as Dejan mentioned above, we don't miss anything. It's what we do to bring you the most comprehensive coverage around.
It's also what we'll continue to bring you. -- Dale Lolley
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Our company has unprecedented reach, not just here on the site and app but on all our social media and everything else we do. If you have a business that could benefit from this, as our many partners have, some of them for years now, our 2019 media kit has all the info you’d want. Email me directly at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com to set up a meeting. -- Dali Kovacevic
WE'RE LISTENING
• A good many of you noticed our newest feature, introduced a couple weeks ago, judging by the torrent of page views and comments: It's called Hot Button, and it collects news of all kinds from everywhere that might be of interest to Pittsburgh sports fans. I'd be interested to hear if you'd prefer to receive app alerts for individual items as they're added there. (With a toggle on/off switch, of course.)
• We've asked our developers at Build In Motion to look into restoring the feature that allows commenters to be notified when someone replies to their comment. I'll let you know what they say.
• If you ever lose your login or password info and don't know how to reset it yourself, please reach out for a hand, OK? Email us: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
BACK TO BUSINESS
• New subscribers for 2019 are at 381. You can now track this figure daily at the bottom of the desktop and tablet versions of the site.
• Our daily active app users, averaged out over the past week, are at 12,779, broken down as 10,119 on Apple, 2,660 on Android. That total's plus-45 from the previous week. This figure will always fluctuate with the seasons and the news, so the goal is a steady, gradual increase, initially to 15,000, a number we've never achieved.
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past month, are at 73,807. The goal with this figure is also about a steady, gradual increase, first to 100,000, a number we've achieved only during the two Stanley Cup runs.
• Our most-hit article of the past week -- exempting live files -- was Dale's coverage of Devin Bush being drafted at 9,939. The Steelers accounted for 54.8 percent of our page views, the Pirates 23.2 percent, the Penguins 21.8 percent.
• We're at 31,648 (+132) followers on Twitter, we're at 31,583 (+31) page likes on Facebook, we're at 10,647 (+48) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• Join our group of business partners! This is our updated 2019 media kit with all our essential data. If you're interested, contact my wife directly at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Get our free newsletter with a simple signup! We send out a new one Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
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