Dedham girls hockey celebrates a goal against Norwood this winter. / Photo by Sean Browne
Hey Dedham sports fans,
I’m writing today to give everyone a status update on the Dedham Sports Digest. Effective immediately, the publication will be going on hiatus for the summer. This was the plan from inception as the project was always meant to be more of a labor of love than a grind, and since the vast majority of the content was derived from Dedham High athletics, it made sense to take a break for a bit.
Billing on all paid subscriptions have been paused. No one will not be charged during the summer sabbatical, and all paid subscribers will be notified and given the option to either resume billing or cancel before paid content resumes. If the moment strikes me and I decide to write anything over the summer, it will be free to all subscribers.
As far as the long-term strategy for DSD, that is very unsettled. Unfortunately, there is a very real possibility that the hiatus may end up being a permanent one. While yes, much of the motivation to start the endeavor was my passion for local sports and a desire to reconnect with the community, it is also a business and not a hobby. And financially, the juice has not been worth the squeeze.
The DSD was never meant to be a money-making machine. When I set out, I had a low bar for what I would consider a successful number of paid subscriptions in the first year. Frankly, it has failed to approach that.
Why? Likely a lot of reasons. Certainly, some of it falls on me for misjudging the amount of interest and/or not being able to market the product correctly. Mostly though, being a paid subscription-based model in these days of consumers being inundated with so many streaming services and apps, choices need to be made, and often paying for journalism takes a back seat. Sad but true.
All hope is not lost. I will continue to kick around ideas to keep the DSD alive when it is due to return in September. But realistically, it will be an uphill climb to find a way to make it work.
Still, I’m proud of the work done by the DSD. To be honest, Dedham High has had better school years on the fields, rinks and courts — on the mat was pretty damn good — but the aim was to provide the best coverage possible to what I felt was an underserved sports community and I think we accomplished that. Particularly, a big goal was to feature as many of our tremendous local student-athletes as I could and being able to connect with so many through our Meet a Marauder series — 19 in all — has been the highlight of the experience.
As always, thanks for reading,
Tom Fargo