Kovacevic: Our baseball following's still lunacy

Aug 3, 2024 • 12:04 am

2.9K

Gauging our baseball impact's always been a bit of a chore.

On one hand, the Pirates are just as popular here as they are in Pittsburgh as a whole. Meaning third behind the Steelers and Penguins in every measurable way. It's a closer third now than it's been at certain stages, but it's still third, which is why we stack the teams the way we do on our various menus and buttons on the app/site.

On the other hand ... not sure how I'd ever be able to quantify it, but there's a steadiness to those who follow the Pirates here that's just amazing. No slumps, only streaks. They're here day after day, in season and out of season, optimistic or pessimistic. They don't take a break.

Really, check this out:

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

That's the traffic for the past week. The second entry up there's the Pirates Feed, and the 148,219 figure represents page views. Which is more than quadruple our norm for any of the Feeds. Which is ... nuts. But also very, very much welcome.

Here's why: It tells me that, at Major League Baseball's trade deadline, we were trusted to get you stuff quickly, thoroughly and thoughtfully. That's why we'd get all those refreshes. That's why the average engagement time for a reader was three minutes, one second -- rather than just a blip -- because we offered lots of coverage but also lots of analytical content. And that's why we drew 41,998 unique users within that, meaning the number of different people, because our various articles were promoted via social media and, thus, attracted outside eyeballs.

And don't even get me started on having 70,290 page views on that one live game file from Houston. That's Steelers/Penguins territory.

For anyone who doesn't know, the origin of our usage of the term 'Lunatics' here has nothing to do with me or the site, and it wasn't even my idea. A reader began referring to people who followed the Pirates as 'lunatics,' so the nickname, much like the Pirates' own nickname, comes from derisive beginnings. (The old Alleghenys signed second baseman Louis Bierbauer away from Philadelphia in 1891, one newspaper out there referred to the Pittsburgh team as 'pirates' for doing so, and everyone here kinda liked it.)

So how 'Lunatics' became a thing here is that I'd fondly make fun of our readers in a similar intonation, and then it eventually became stretched across sports, and then it just became a thing associated with our brand.

Anyway, you really are lunatics. Or Lunatics. No World Series since 1979. No division title since 1992. No hope at all in only about 95% of the seasons that ensued. And you're still the most reliable of all the readers we've got.

Take a bow. I mean that.

I've got no idea how you do it. None. But we're proud that, through your endless travails, you've got a clear trust in what we do to cover it all, and we'll continue working to earn and keep that. And that means ramping it up for 2025. Full minor leagues. Return of Mound Visit. More.

INSIDE THE WORKS

• With Dali, Dara and Marko all in Japan for a couple weeks, I'm doing ... a lot. And that includes going it solo at the HQ/shop. Happy to have anyone stop to say hi.

• Our push to expand our local advertising profile's begun. Nothing cemented yet. Working on it.

• Can't wait for our custom commenting upgrade to be in place. That's expected before the football season.

• Hey, let's start letting it rip on those Steelers Feed comments, yeah? We can all see the readership, but it's not the same with 2-3 comments on each post.

• Everyone loving being ad-free? If you're not there yet, it's only for paying subscribers. If you aren't subscribed yet or if your subscription's expired: This is our subscribe page. From there, 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 offer discounts, as ever, for student subscriptions and senior subscriptions.

• Grateful that so many of you continue to leave us good reviews on outside platforms. For anyone who hasn't yet, feel free to add your own on our Google listing, our Apple or Spotify podcast channels, our YouTube channels for the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates and, last but not least, our own app, whether it's the Apple or Android version. And again, thank you!

BACK TO BUSINESS

• Our page-view numbers for the past week were 1,062,429, with 41,998 unique users over the most recent full seven-day span, July 26-Aug. 1. Our most-read original piece was my column on the Pirates' trade deadline, at 30,158.

• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 81,444, and our YouTube video views were 117,609.

• Our company social media accounts are at 55,427 followers on X, 41,079 on Facebook, 31,857 on YouTube, 15,190 on Instagram, 868 on TikTok ... and already 4,880 on the new Threads!