What’s next for Blue Testament?

I’ve started writing this about 25 times since Friday morning. If you haven’t seen the news, Vox Media has decided to “pull back coverage in some areas.” Vox Media is cutting about seven percent of its workforce, with MLS and NHL SBNation sites hardest hit.

Blue Testament and other affected sites will be “unsupported”. We understand we have until the end of February, but we still need to see how it shakes out. It is possible that the site remains active. It is also possible that we all go somewhere.

We understand that pod support will be cut so we are already looking for solutions.

We know that a small number of scholarship recipients will not receive any money after February. No one in the Blue Testament received adequate compensation. I always referred to my “payment” as gas money, and it sometimes didn’t cover that. I didn’t count on the payment too much when I got the email it was a bit of a gut punch. I thought we were safe because we made so little.

Sometimes you are the legs and sometimes you are the force.

Difficulty

Back when I was in the corporate world and had a desk, well, I had a little rock-like object on my desk. I got it from a store in a mall that carried a variety of items with quotes and inspirational pictures. Think cat on a limb with the words “hang in there” but a little classier.

Opportunity lurks in the midst of adversity. – Albert Einstein

The attribution is probably spurious, it was probably John Archibald Wheeler but that doesn’t really matter anymore. Whichever scientist originated the quote, it rang true with me. I believe it and have found a better way many times when it seemed like everything was going sour.

We can’t tell you what will happen or what it will look like, but I can guarantee that we won’t go away. We’ll still cover football in Kansas City and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get something better.

Community

The term community is often thrown around a little loosely, but Blue Testament has become a community for football fans in Kansas City. We know and care about writers and readers. I’ve had quite a few family members over the years and outside of family members, the only people I really spoke to were other contributors to the Blue Testament.

It’s wonderful to check in with Blue Testament readers and get to know them. They cannot be willingly surrendered by reading news, jokes, gifs (looking at you Ked), recipes, and the vast knowledge and life experiences shared.

Recently when one of our readers was harassed in the comments, two of us raced each other to get rid of them with BAN authority. It’s rare, but we want our readers to feel safe here.

The site was constantly growing, adding authors, pods, and teams we covered. But as we grew, we also focused on increasing quality and community.

This football community is too valuable, especially for me, to let it go.

moving forward

While I can’t speak for everyone on the site, I believe most of us will continue here until a better solution is found. We take care to cover Sporting Kansas City, Kansas City Current, Kansas City Comets, SKC II, and anything Kansas City football. We have the World Cup coming up here.

We want to cover those teams; We want to be an alternative voice with opinions different from team accounts or stars.

And we will.

If the worst happens and we lose it before we can make a new plan, rest assured that we will have a new plan even if we have to start from scratch.

One of my favorite quotes from a Marvel movie.

Ultron: They are doomed!

Drishti: Yes…but nothing is beautiful because it lasts. It is a privilege to be among them.

It has been my privilege to work with the writers and readers of this site.

Stay tuned to this space and our personal Twitter and other social media accounts.