One of the few things I've seldom discussed in this weekly feature is how much money we're making. If only because, well, no private company does.
For the first time in our eight-year history, I'll do that.
Because this burgeoning business, born from nothing but a dubious idea because I was really mad at my newspaper bosses one night, is about to make a million bucks in a calendar year.
No, for real.
Projections are just projections, and there are still four months and change left in the year, but we're currently on a pace to achieve more than $1.1 million in total revenues. And when it happens, it'll blow away the previous mark of roughly $800,000, set just last year.
That figure combines subscription revenue, sponsorships, programmatic advertising on the app/site, and programmatic advertising on podcasts and videos. I'm not going to get into percentages and so forth -- hey, come on -- but let's just say that three of those four streams are on the rise, with only programmatic advertising on the app/site declining. And even that decline's been modest with a chance of catching up.
Now, of course, revenue means nothing if it's being overrun by expenses. At least not to places that are run responsibly and setting themselves up for long-term futures as opposed to say, short-term selloffs.
I'm not divulging specifics on expenses, but let's just say on this count that they've increased with the addition of unprecedented personnel covering the Steelers, a much larger role for Ramon Foster, the full-time commitment to Pitt football/basketball, more behind-the-scenes help for Eddie Provident on the multimedia, and we'll soon be making another full-time hire on the latter front. There've also been across-the-board increases in salary, as well as increases in travel and other costs.
None of that prevents a profit from being made by year's end, and we're already in the process -- Dali and David Rosenblatt are handling that, actually -- of planning how to put that right back into further growth.
Never better, my friends. Never better.
