Five Media Things: On FIFA and Bedlam Baseball Videos

Stillwater last week was a blast. We hit up the golf tournament on Tuesday, I got out to a basketball practice on Thursday, we had our annual meetings on Friday and Saturday and then we capped it off by listening to a man with a mullet talk about sports for 50 minutes in room tucked away in GIA. What more could a sportswriter ask for?

What I’m Excited About

The next three weeks (!) are a spring to the Missouri State game, and we’ll have as much #content flowing out of here as we possibly can. I’ve made a tentative football season schedule, and I think I’m going to be able to get to 4-5 games, which would be more than last year. I’m really fired up about the different angles we’ll be covering this team from and all the talent you’ll get to see the rest of this year and beyond from our collection of writers, GIFers, Twitterers and podcasters.

A Media Thing I Think I Believe

I told my buddy Josh last night during a dinner that I always think the most important part of our annual PFB summit is going to be the words I say or the plans I have for the site. He laughed at my naivety, and he’s right to. Because somehow playing FIFA until 2 a.m. and watching Bedlam baseball videos from the early 90s while drinking COOPs has a far more galvanizing effect on the #squad than anything I could ever write down on a Google Doc.

Great moment from the weekend, by the way, was as follows:

Me (via text on Friday a.m.): “Can somebody bring a game or some cards? I can’t do much more of the Frozen match game.”

Jackson: “Yeah, I’ll bring my XBox.”

Me (feeling v old): “Thanks.”

Dustin (14 hours later, staring at Hungry Hungry Hippos on the counter): “You weren’t kidding, Kyle — I haven’t seen Hungry Hungry Hippos in about two decades!”

Kyle Boone wrote really well about our summit weekend here and how much fun we all had together as well as the future of our site and what we want to be. The only thing I would add is that weekends where we all get to hang out and have fun together engender a level of care for one another that you don’t get over Slack or email.

Running a business almost purely digitally is very strange, and our summit humanizes the entire endeavor in a way that makes me incredibly excited to keep doing this.

Thanks again to COOP for the sponsorship as well as 1907 Meat Co. for the brunch on Saturday. And shout out to the Hideaway Pizza delivery guy who appeared on a podcast he has definitely never heard of before.

Great weekend in Stillwater for PFB’s third annual retreat. A big thanks to our @COOPAleWorks for being the official weekend sponsor! Highly recommend checking out the Oktoberfest + Fly Me Away IPA if you haven’t already. ??? pic.twitter.com/PDud3e3F8R

— Pistols Firing (@pistolsguys) August 5, 2018

What I’m Reading

I haven’t read much in the last week. This time of year is kind of brutal on my reading list with #fallcampszn and the end of the golf year colliding to suck away every iota of my time and energy. My goal is to finish the Anthony Bourdain book I started while I travel for the PGA Championship later in the week.

Contribution And Site Updates

We are at 317 contributors. That’s +2 from last week. We’re moving in the right direction (which is exciting), and I’d expect that to pick up as football gets cranking. Here’s where you can contribute if you aren’t already. Free gear! Ad-free browsing!

Site Growth

Pageviews through August 6, 2018: 7.4M
Pageviews through August 6, 2017: 7.6M
Most popular post of August 2018: A&M grad transfer coming to OSU
Most popular post of August 2017: Preseason OSU hype video
Most popular post of 2018: Spencer out as DC

Website Refresh Update

Well, we almost got a new site at the end of last week. It didn’t work, though, so we’re going to try again later this week. Here’s a sneak preview with some old #content.