WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- I love making this trip every year, but loathe that this one coincided with today's Light Up Night taking place back home.
If only because this promises to be the most seismic moment yet for our Downtown HQ/shop, with tens of thousands expected to descend, as always, on the Golden Triangle. And with Fifth Avenue and Market Square playing prominent roles in the festivities. And with our hours extended to (at least) 9 p.m. And with our inventory having been bulked up big-time in the past few days alone.
Could be quite a day. But it's already been quite a year.
To start, it's been fun. I'm not going to lie: Dali and I have really enjoyed the experience, not just of the retail component but also with the-far-more-significant-to-us element of being able to meet our readers and listeners throughout the week, even while having a cool new space in which to write articles, record podcasts, have meetings, whatever.
And beyond that, the retail's gone ... better than expected. Without getting into dollar figures -- we seldom do -- we've already moved into legit profitability, albeit modest, and we hadn't budgeted for that at all in 2022. Add into it that we opened on April 29 and still haven't benefited from Light Up Night or the entire Christmas season, and there's ample room for optimism that we'll exceed that modest level in short order.
We've also learned from what our buyers do/don't want, and we've expanded the Pittsburgh-only stuff -- not at all sports-related -- with an outlook for doing even more. That's because, to be blunt, we're really the only ones in that part of Downtown stocking any, and we're right across the street from a hotel and right around the corner from Market Square. Lots of tourists.
If you've had the chance to visit us and done so, thank you!
If you're too far away, shop our own online store for the DKPS merch! And our partners at Fanatics for officially licensed team merch! We've also got gift cards and gift subscriptions, as well!
Oh, and there's also this:
RETURN OF BUILDING BRICKS
Way back in February, just after we'd announced our intent to open the HQ/shop, we jointly concocted with readers a drive to make sure the place was every bit as classy as we'd hoped it'd be. We sold what we were calling Building Bricks at three price levels -- $75, $250 and $1,000 -- and placed them prominently on the wall behind our podcasting table:
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Building Bricks on the side wall at 224 Fifth Avenue, Downtown.
Some will recall that we really rushed this because of the amount of time and care it'd take to make these -- plus the duplicates that the contributors kept -- and we had it all done within two weeks, ready for the grand opening.
Some who missed all of this later complained about being left out, including many who've stopped at the HQ and saw the display. And in turn, I vowed back then that we'd have a second -- and final — drive to fill out the wall, which still has about one-third of its space uncovered.
So ...
If you'd like a Building Brick, please email me directly at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com, and we'll make that happen. Price levels and policies are the same as the first time around.
And if you hurry, you can pull this off in time to have one as a Christmas gift, though the order’s got to arrive here by the end of November, the engravers tell us.
INSIDE THE WORKS
• This is insane, but our 2022 podcasting revenue's going to double from a year ago.
• A couple nights ago, I asked Corey Crisan to head home from Brooklyn before Pitt basketball had played in its second game of a tournament. That's because no players were made available to the media following the first of those games Wednesday night, the second time that's occurred for a road game under this hoops administration. The reason we travel is for the access. We could’ve gotten the Jeff Capel press conference off a YouTube video. That’s not why we go. We go to get original material, and that invariably comes from the players. Upon returning to Pittsburgh, Corey just turned his full attention to Pitt's football game today against Duke at Acrisure Stadium.
• We're hiring. Full-time, full-pay, full-benefits. Major beats. Everything but hockey. Not replacing anyone. Only adding. Aiming really high.
• We've addressed the tech issue that'd been bugging up the bottom bar on the app. Which means you're in the clear again to go customize that bar with all your favorite teams. Here's how.
• Building up that talk-show thing again, but might wait until January after football's done to launch.
• Travel on tap: Once I'm home from Canada, the only meaningful trip anyone makes over Thanksgiving week will be Taylor Haase heading to Philadelphia the day after. Chris Halicke and I will be in Indianapolis for the Steelers' Monday night game that's nine days away.
• I've really been cranking the columns of late, and I'm going to take a bit of a writing breather over the holiday break. Family's visiting from out of town. But again, I'll be out in Indy for football.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the week were 374,678, with our weekly goal being 500,000. Our most-read original piece was ... well, my Steelers-Saints game column and my follow-up Kenny Pickett column were at a virtual heat at 6,006 and 5,993, respectively. Broken down by team traffic, articles on the Steelers brought 19.6% of our readership, the Penguins 18.7%, the Pirates 9.8%, Penn State 3.7%, and Pitt 2.9%.
• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 136,050, with our weekly goal being 200,000, and our YouTube video views for the past week were 96,945, with our weekly goal being 150,000.
• Our company social media accounts are at 47,510 followers on Twitter, 37,859 on Facebook, 18,285 on YouTube, 14,597 on Instagram, 92 on TikTok.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com