Nats beat writer asks blog readers to send him to spring training

Does he really have to declare that all as income? I imagine if he kept careful records, he'd be fine.

 

You joke but I think the fact that the Nats play in DC where there's a solid income base among fans is a big boost for Mark's plan. He's already raised well more than the Reds writer has it appears.

 

Good on him, but I hope he socks away as big a cushion as he can now. Another pledge drive on May Day with the Nats 15 games out isn't likely to produce the same haul.

 

But on the flip side, if the Nats surprise everybody and are in contention into August he might get a lot of people willing to pony up for more coverage.

 

That's funny.

 

Yeah, but who would have expected the Royals to contend in 2003 or Tampa Bay to go to the World Series two years ago.

One of the big problems with making money off a site that covers one team is that subscriptions, or in this case I guess donations, swing so much on the success of the team.

 

why don't you send your money to a baseball writer who is on salary and expenses? so that he can fly first class, upgrade his hotel and drink more expensive wine.

charity should be for charity cases. this guy is distorting the meaning of charity at a time when people should be thinking clearly about who needs it.

 

I just think it's funny that spring training is what is in question, because as someone who covered three spring trainings and portions of two others, it's one of the most worthless things to cover, that costs an absolute fortune for newspapers.

It's also one of those things that some sportswriters love to cover because everything is usually over pretty early and what's better than spending several weeks in Arizona or Florida when things are snowy and freezing where they usually live.

 

Just looked at his site and he has nearly doubled (as of right now) what he originally needed. Curious to see if people will pay a second (or third or fourth) time around. If he plans to go on road trips, I'm guessing he'll need to ask for more $$. At the very base of it, though, I think it shows a guy wanting to do what he loves. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't want to get into the whole other people need charity debate other than to say in all of history, it's hard to imagine a time when there wasn't someone who was in need of help (and, FYI, as far as I can tell Zuckerman has never used the word charity).

 

Yeah, but it's also what is most attractive to the hard-core fan -- the same one motivated to send a few bucks to get someone they know and trust to cover it.

Also, by having people pony up for coverage, if a writer wants to sell ads on his or her site, then advertisers can be shown that you have a committed group of readers -- like a newspaper!

 

That's a very good point about the hardcore fans.

 

This isn't charity.

Donating to the work of an artist or creative person whose work you enjoy is a positive experience that many people like to do. I've donated to several artists whose work I like on the web. Not because it was "charity" but because I enjoyed their work and wanted to support it.