The Mane Land's Independence

As you may know, SBNation support of MLS blogs such as The Mane Land is being discontinued after recent cuts by Vox Media. This threatens not only our existence as a popular media outlet covering Orlando City, the Orlando Pride, and OCB, but the very voice of independent writing. Many national media members count on sites like ours to keep up with the day-to-day activities of the club.

Our site, and others like it, are choosing to continue providing you the coverage you've been enjoying for free for many years. Some have already rebranded and launched new sites. Some have pivoted to newsletter formats. Some have gone to a paid platform. We hope to continue under our existing name, offering at least the same level of coverage as before at no cost to our readers.

I want to just state up front that we are NOT taking part in a similar GoFundMe titled 'Funds for folks affected by SBNation shutdowns.' We applaud those efforts and we have obviously been affected, but we wanted to keep ours separate to ensure the donations by our readers and listeners go directly to transitioning The Mane Land to its new independent home rather than being divided.

For more than eight years, a small group of writers (some local, some remote) and fans of the club, like you, have told the story of the soccer club with our unique voices. You've made us one of the most popular SBNation team-specific sites among U.S.-based teams. We want to continue informing and entertaining to the best of our abilities.

We started as an independent free WordPress site and we could return to that if need be, but we think you deserve better, and we know you're used to a more robust online experience. We want to provide you with a new site that functions as similar to our current one as possible, with as little disruption as is feasible. To do that, we would need a little help getting started.

Many of you have asked us how you can help us continue. After polling our social media followers, we found a fairly even split between the folks who preferred a one-time donation to get the new site up and running and those who would prefer we add a premium tier with subscriber benefits (a Patreon-type setup). We prefer to leave the choice up to you, so we are planning to utilize both methods and let you decide if you want to do one, the other, or both. Either way, it's important to us that you're getting something in return (more on that below).

While we have not yet finalized a list of Patreon benefits, which will come later for those who want them, we have identified our startup needs that we think will provide the best user experience for you. This fundraiser will be used to cover those needs, which include:

If we surpass our goal, we would use any surplus to add features to the site, extend our hosting deals beyond the first year, get additional expert consulting for improvements, and potentially cover the costs of some travel to provide better road coverage.

Now, what do YOU get for your donations for helping man the digital wall? For helping us get started, YOU WILL BE FOREVER* IMMORTALIZED as a founding member of the new, independent version of The Mane Land!

We're open to suggestions for more benefits within our means, but we have come up with the following benefits, at a minimum:

IMPORTANT NOTE: We will need you to email us a screenshot of your donation receipt to themaneland (the 'at' sign here) gmail (add the dot and the com at the end) showing the amount to confirm your Founder level status so we can properly log your benefits and please let us know how you'd like your name to be displayed (please submit name only, no organizations or businesses which can be misconstrued as advertising). Sorry we wrote the address like that. It's also important to note that if you make your donation anonymously, we respect that but we won't be able to provide Founder benefits.

*Forever or for as long as our site exists, whichever comes first.

The staff of The Mane Land thanks you for your support over the past eight-plus years! We also thank those who generously become Founders of the new, independent version of TML. If we fall short of our goal, we will implement as many of the items on our list as possible.

-Michael Citro, TML Founder and Managing Editor

UPDATE: We reached our bare minimum goal to cover startup costs for the site and podcast(s) in just 4.5 hours! Our heartfelt thanks go out to those who donated. That show of support was extremely humbling. We are changing our flexible goal. Those who want to help, but haven't yet perhaps even seen this fundraiser, can still show their support through donations and take their place on our virtual wall, because there is more we can do, such as:

SECOND UPDATE: Holy moly, you guys have been incredible! After wereached our basic minimum goal to continue for our first year as an independent within 4.5 hours, we reached our first stretch goal around midnight of the first day of the fundraiser, which would allow the bulleted point just above. We are now working on our dream stretch, which would not only ensure the site remains funded for the next several years, but it will also allow us to give the entire staff some compensation for their work.

The entire staff at The Mane Land is just flabbergasted by the show of support from our community. We are reinvigorated and are busy thinking of ways to thank you all.