Kovacevic: Made it on the Military Drive! And then some!

Nov 11, 2023 • 5:58 am

The duty's been done ... and then some!

Our annual Military Drive, aimed at connecting 1,000 veterans of our Armed Forces to a one-year subscription, added --- you're not going to believe this -- 64 more subscriptions yesterday, plus 37 from 'Yinzer' Bobby Churchill to get us to his wish for 1,001, plus another extraordinary event I'm about to describe to bring our final total to ... 1,392! ... all right at our deadline, which is always on the eve of Veterans Day today!

Oh, for real!

So, for those who'd been tracking this all week atop our home page, how'd we get from 909, the total as of Thursday 11:59 p.m., to blowing through the goal?

Well, pull up a chair: Chris Hylen, a partner, supporter and friend to this site for many years, saw that we were at 609 with the most recent Site Stuff a week ago. He reached out to pledge at that time that he'd commit to the remaining 391 -- or whatever we'd wind up lacking -- to achieve 1,000. And it was then that I'd mentioned to Chris that we tend to have a lot of late-comers in this Drive, including many who prefer it that way, and that, respectfully, I'd rather let the rest run before he commits.

And the pledges kept coming. And Chris' number kept shrinking. And more kept coming. And Chris' number kept shrinking ... until he totally lost his mind near the end of this week and told us he'd still commit to his original amount, even as he was packing to fly here for a weekend to watch his beloved Penguins and Steelers.

I know, right?

Thank you to everyone. That's my message today. From the many people who contributed in massive amounts to the many, many people who contributed the most common amount of $100, to the many, many, many people who simply contributed one or two and did so with wonderful messages of support or even remembrances of fallen family or friends. Hope no one takes this the wrong way, but all are appreciated equally. Dali and I read literally every single email, sometimes to each other out loud.

For anyone who's new here: This has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of this almost-10-year ride at DK Pittsburgh Sports. We began offering free subscriptions to all active-duty military right at launch in 2014 and, eventually, our readers pleaded with us to expand the program to veterans, as well, even offering to cover those specific costs. That's how this very Drive was born.

Next comes the fun part: If you or anyone you know is a veteran, let them know of this program. We want all of our military to be able to enjoy everything this app/site offers, including the subscriber-only perks such as the Live Qs with reporters, the soon-to-be-upgraded commenting platform and, yeah, let's not leave out the ad-free experience that's now in place.

Send 'em right here: Military membership

With our thanks, as ever!

INSIDE THE WORKS

• More interviews this week for possible hires -- several on baseball, one on hockey -- plus a couple more candidates lined up for next week ... but nothing's in place yet. And again, there's no rush.

• One cool thing that'll occur in 2024: Chris Halicke will cover all three of our Texas-based baseball events, meaning the All-Star Game in Arlington, the Pirates' three-game series against the Rangers in that same place, and the Pirates' three-game series against the Astros in Houston. It'll be his first All-Star experience, and he's very much the type to soak that up. Especially in the stadium where he once worked for a couple years in covering the now-champs.

• I counted up, out of personal curiosity, how many games I cover over the course of each of our teams' full seasons, and this was the distribution: The Steelers, of course, are always all 20, including preseason. I also covered 35 of the Penguins' games in the 2022-23 regular season, plus two in the preseason. And I covered 42 of the Pirates' games, plus three in spring training. Grand total: 102. And again, that's just actual games, not practices or press conferences or whatever else.

• It's been more than a month now of being blissfully ad-free for subscribers, albeit with a few lingering hiccups, and that now includes the elimination of the spinning DKPS/advertiser logo upon each refresh. Now, all a refresh means is a refresh of the page.

• Would you believe the Downtown shop's on pace for six-figure revenue this year? Uh-huh. And while we're grateful for all readers/viewers/listeners who stop by, the real reason for that's been the resurgence of Downtown itself. People are back to work, the sidewalks are filled again like it's 2019, and it's been the general flow of humans that's made the biggest difference.

• Light Up Night, the best day of the year here -- and the day they'll finally light up all of the Three Sisters bridges for good, arrives exactly a week from today. We'll be open very late, naturally, at least to 10 p.m. If you're one of the gazillions who do this, we'll be here.

• 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 our new pages completed for student subscriptions and senior subscriptions.

BACK TO BUSINESS

• Our page-view numbers for the past week were 802,220, with 39,059 unique users over the most recent full seven-day span. Our most-read original piece was my column from the victory over the Titans, at 20,794. Our top 10 files, right from our Google Analytics page, are at the bottom of this section.

• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 130,174, and our YouTube video views for the past week were 138,572.

• Our company social media accounts are at 51,529 followers on X, 40,122 on Facebook, 25,792 on YouTube, 14,937 on Instagram ... and already 2,911 on the new Threads!