Another brick in the wall?
Try 78 of them!
A week ago, based on an idea from three readers, we invited everyone to become a permanent part of our new DK Pittsburgh Sports headquarters/shop Downtown, through a legacy wall of what we're calling Building Bricks. And the response was ... nothing short of remarkable:
• 9 Gold Bricks at $1,000 each!
• 40 Blue Bricks at $250 each!
• 29 Black Bricks at $75 each!
Check out the illustration above this article. Dali made that last night to illustrate how the wall would look right now, based on these contributions alone.
Crazy, huh?
For a whole bunch of reasons, we won't be expanding beyond the wall that's shown there. And for aesthetic reasons alone, we won't even fill that wall. Based on the number of Golds and Blues that still come, we'll probably end up cutting this off around 150. So, twice as many as we've got now.
If anyone missed the intro to this last week: It's a 13x13 wall that'll be the backdrop for our open podcasting studio. The Bricks themselves come with your names -- plus messages for Gold and Blue -- professionally embossed by Tri-State Signs and Reprographics in the Strip. The Gold Bricks are 12x6 inches, the Blue 10x3, the Black 5x2. And the Gold and Blue come with replicas for you to keep.
And I've just go to share before moving on to other business: The letters, the notes sent my way over the past week from people who contributed ... it was just amazing. The way this little venture's hit home with so many good people from all over, it felt like it hit home with me all over again.
If you're interested, email me directly with your preference at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com
HQ/SHOP UPDATE
We have a floor!
I'd been in Canada for a couple days, so I had the extra fun last night of visiting the under-construction HQ/shop like a kid on Christmas morning in not having seen a fair amount of work that'd gotten done. And on this visit, I was floored by ... the floor:
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
The floor, 224 Fifth Avenue, Downtown.
Looks pretty serious. And that was the intent. We aimed with every component to bring a strong, sturdy look, one worthy of being housed in a Historic Landmark, and the floor's a fine foundation for that.
Most of the structural stuff's done. Ceiling's done. Almost all of the painting, electrical, even some lighting. Next comes the building/assembly of shelving and other furniture, most of which will be done by She Who Is Boss. (And no, she'll never let anyone as pathetically inept as a sports writer near real work!)
From there, all we're missing is the presentation of merch and, of course, the street-front sign, which still needs city approval. And our feeling right now is that, when the sign's cleared and ready, so are we. But no idea when that might be.
Insanely exciting.
NEW BUTTONS ON APP
Opening the app this morning will bring a slightly different user experience: The right button of the main bottom bar on the home page has been committed to our burgeoning podcasts. They're now one simple tap away, and in the easiest possible position for the thumb on the right hand.
That's not an accident, of course. The podcasts have become an enormous part of who we are, both editorially and financially, and we want anyone who's got our app on their mobile device to feel like we're a podcast app like any other. This is another step toward that, in addition to -- and we already have this -- allowing listeners to enjoy our podcasts even while our app's minimized.
Also, after much feedback from readers, we've finally created a dedicated button for our live files. Meaning those where we're describing games, practices, press conferences, etc. It's called LIVE, and it's part of the blue bar that runs horizontally across the middle of the home page. Right next to FEED, where our staff's Twitter feeds now go.
WE GO EVERYWHERE
• Even though Major League Baseball's owners and players are nowhere near solving their issues, the Pirates are conducting a minor-league camp -- only players who aren't on the 40-man roster -- beginning Monday and running through March 2 down in Bradenton, Fla. Alex Stumpf will, of course, fly down there to cover all of it.
• Taylor Haase will fly down to Florida, too, for the Penguins' game Thursday night in Tampa.
• I'll take the game the next night in Raleigh, N.C., then stay an extra day to visit Dara at her campus in Winston-Salem!
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 373,576. Our most-read original piece was Tom Reed's feature on Jaromir Jagr's caretakers, at 19,391. Broken down by team, articles on the Penguins brought 32.2% of our traffic, the Steelers 18.4%, the Pirates 7.3%, Pitt 4.1%, and Penn State 1.9%.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 263,179.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 131,957.
• We're at 43,603 followers on Twitter, 37,617 on Facebook, 14,573 on Instagram, 11,188 on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company accounts on each of those platforms, not including any of our individual accounts.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com