FanGraphs Membership
Today, we’re excited to introduce FanGraphs Membership. What is FanGraphs Membership? Quite simply, it is a voluntary way for you to help support all the baseball content we produce each and every day. If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to help contribute to the long-term growth of the site, this is your chance to do just that, and partner with us to help continue to provide data and content that helps us all understand the game of baseball a little bit better.
FanGraphs Membership is not a paywall; we are not creating a separate section of the site that will only be available to members. In fact, we’re actually taking the content that was previously available to FanGraphs+ subscribers and making it available to everyone. We want every person who visits the site to feel that they are getting the most out of their experience, and believe that, with a broad base of support from the fantastic community here, we can continue to provide that information without restricting access to anyone.
With the introduction of FanGraphs Membership, all the content produced on FanGraphs will now be accessible for free, without logging in, or being a FanGraphs Member. If you are not a FanGraphs Member, we will occasionally ask if you’d like to join in supporting the site, but it will always be your decision to make. Think of FanGraphs Membership as something akin to the model used by NPR.
Now you may be asking yourself, why is FanGraphs doing this?
From the start of FanGraphs — over 10 years ago! — the vision has been to bring you the very best baseball statistics and analysis. FanGraphs now employs eight full-time staff members and 50 contributors who produce over 400 articles each month, in addition to our ever growing database of stats and graphs. In order to continue to provide and expand our baseball content, we have decided to offer you a chance to support us voluntarily, believing that the community sees enough value in the site to want to help us not only sustain our current operations, but to continue growing and building out new tools for you to use in the future.
Over the years, we have been asked by countless readers if there is a way to help support FanGraphs. With Membership, we now have an opportunity for you to do just that, without taking away any of the content or tools you use on a daily basis. For just $20 per year (or $3 per month), you can now support the site by becoming a FanGraphs Member. Members will be indicated as such when they comment on an article, allowing you to publicly show your support for the site and the community.
If you are an existing FanGraphs+ subscriber — most importantly, thank you for your decision to support us already — and your subscription has not expired, you will be grandfathered into FanGraphs Membership until your existing FanGraphs+ subscription expires. If you feel that this is not satisfactory. and you have subscribed to FanGraphs+ since November 1st, 2015, please fill out a contact form and we will be happy to offer a full refund on your existing FanGraphs+ subscription.
We are excited for the future of FanGraphs, and with your support, we look forward to continuing to build a fantastic community here, and to forge new frontiers in baseball analysis. Thank you for coming on this journey with us.
To become a member, click here.
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
How much do we have to pay for you to bring NotGraphs back?
I really want someone to answer this question
Soon-to-be FanGraphs Supporting Member
I would pay double, nay, quintuple for NotGraphs to be included.
Alas, the new new T-shirts question was answered while this one remains.
That was my first concern/question.. My second? Getting rid of daily fantasy ads on fg audio.
it’s called pressing the 15 second skip button 4 or 5 times. Takes a total of 3 seconds. (Advertiser, forget what you just read)
How much do we have to pay Dee P. Gordon to take the mound one last time?
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let’s be honest, Dee P. Gordon is probably dead.
His arm fell off.
Blood sacrifice
I come here every day. Rarely comment but that is an entirely reasonable cost to support the excellent content here. How soon can I expect my Jeff Sullivan autographed photo as part of membership package?
Bad news…it’s actually a Carson Cistulli autographed photo!
And Carson Cistulli gets to choose the photo
http://i.imgur.com/33bvi2Z.png
If I had such a photo, I should strangle it here and now.
For my first act as a member, I’d like to recommend some new t-shirt options. You know, the important stuff.
Yeah, I would definitely buy a hat or T, but current designs are pretty hideous.
Related to Notgraphs: a shirsey, Fangraphs team logo being an old english F, jersey number 44, name A.G. DUNN
Baseball caps!
We’re working on it!
since you’re making new shirts, offering one in a baseball-style shirt seems like it’d be appropriate (you know, the shirts with the 3/4 raglan sleeves of a different color from the torso)
yeah, I need optimal shirt engineering to keep my forearms warm when I play a sorry version of softball, without my Cistulli-like wrists being so encumbered by what I imagine would be a shirt that is only 95% cotton.
There will absolutely be a raglan shirt. We will have them available for sale soon. Every day you *don’t* see them available for sale, feel free to yell at me on Twitter. 🙂
Can we make sure that there are appropriate sizes for those with similar body types as Cistulli?
Are there plans to allow members to change usernames? I chose my username in the early days of FG+ before you needed to log in to comment.
If you go to the profile link: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-admin/profile.php, you can change your Nickname, and then your “Display name publicly as”. This won’t change your username, but it will change your name on comments and anywhere else it might be displayed.
Oh awesome — thank you!
This is great. I’ve been reading FG for years and have always appreciated it, and this seems like a better way to support FG and the content I appreciate than, say, clicking on ads. And the price is super reasonable, especially as a graduate student.
You could get an extra buck or two out of me if you killed ads for members.
Are the ads so bad? They used to be more annoying when there was that Fox ad that autoplayed on every page, but that seems to have stopped.
In fact I hardly even notice adds anywhere. Even on this very page I’m typing this article, there is no add anywhere to be found.
Fangraphs doesn’t ask for much (at most $20 a year). I think a small ad on the right margin is worth living with given everything they give to us.
You’re missing the point, which is that a no-ads FG membership is an alternative way of monetizing users that might yield more revenue than ads. I don’t know FG’s CPMs so I won’t presume, I just hope the possibility is being considered. This is a very common model, one that Spotify uses, and plenty of mobile apps, etc.
Well you are also assuming that the revenue FG makes per user < the extra money they could charge for ad-free. Maybe it would cost more than just an extra buck or two to equal out.
I would say far too frequently this website becomes unusable on mobile due to the ads on the non-home page. It’s the only thing that even makes me slightly hesitant to join as a member (I’m assuming this doesn’t get rid of the ads for me) but $20 for the amount of content I receive from this place is a no-brainer. And hopefully this cause eventually lessens the dependency on quick-buck ads that auto redirect you to the app store.
“… $20 for the amount of content I receive from this place is a no-brainer.”
This.
Dave Stewart has to comment here. Just has to.
Yep. They’re that bad. And I’ve always said “I would pay not to have ads.”
In this case, I have paid and will continue to use ad-block.
This times a million. The video ads give me more trouble than anything on any other site I regularly go to, and there are days when they make FanGraphs unusable on my phone. I’d gladly pay (much more than the membership rate) to have no ads.
I agree 100%. Whatever ad engine Fangraphs usings causes my laptop’s fan to wheeze harder than Wilford Brimley running a marathon and the web browser (IE 11) to become unresponsive. I’d gladly pay, and pay more for ad-free content.
There’s currently no immediately plan to have an option to get rid of ads, though it is an idea we’ve kicked around behind the scenes and will continue to think about.
I will say that we do not condone or intentionally put ads on the site which hurt the user experience. This includes audio ads, iphone redirect ads, ads that crash your browser, ads that expand over content, or any other obnoxious practices.
Sometimes it is incredibly difficult for us to get rid of these offending ads as the ad exchanges we use (including google), will occasionally have ads that do not adhere to the terms set forth by the ad exchange. Google and others are typically quick to remove and ban advertisers, but it is really a game of whack-a-mole.
We try and block these ads when we see them, but it’s also a game of whack-a-mole for us too.
There have been a few occasions where things have gotten really bad and we have removed entire ad companies from our rotation, or even removed all ads entirely from the site (we did this for all mobile usage for quite some time last year). However, this ends up being an extremely short term solution as we very much depend on our advertising revenue.
Unfortunately this is a problem for much of the media industry, especially companies that are not quite large enough to do direct ad sales and have 100% control over the advertising that goes on the site. While FanGraphs isn’t tiny, we don’t fall into the direct sales category and are at the mercy of ad exchanges and ad partners.
Trust me, I’m as frustrated as you are (probably more so) every time I get redirected, or have a browser crash. But, until there is a better solution, we’re in a bit of a bind and we are giving our best effort to chip away at these offending ads.
Possible solution: I downloaded the free “1Blocker” app on iOS and have not had a problem since on mobile. There are a few other similar apps, but this has greatly improved my mobile experience on FG.
Fair enough bro.
I have been iPhone redirected to websites and the Apple Store from this page more times than I can count. I almost quit visiting once because it had gotten so bad.
If you’ll clean up the ads to reasonable and bring back NotGraphs, I’m in.
one other annoyance of ads is when i’m looking at fangraphs at work and some “newscaster fail” ad comes up with some marginally sfw pic…. i quickly scroll or close my browser.
Will FanGraphs+ memberships turn into auto-renewing annual memberships?
If you have an existing FanGraphs+ subscription, auto-renew will not be turned on for those. If you want to become a FanGraphs Member, you can still join at any time, but as long as your FanGraphs+ subscription hasn’t expired yet, you’ll still be seen as a Member.
Happy to support the cause – but I don’t like the idea of an auto-renewal (not just for FG – for anything).
How can I contribute towards a 1yr membership but turn the auto-renewal feature off?
If you subscribe and go to the account link at the top of the page, you can immediately cancel your subscription and it will be put in a pending cancelation status that will last until your renewal date. You will at that time not be billed again until you re-subscribe.
For some reason I go the impression from the podcasts that Mr. Appelman was an independently wealthy businessman who was happy to lose money on Fangraphs for decades. After reading the write-up, I realized that was not the case and wondered how the ads could possibly come close to supporting all of the staff.
Anyway, glad to help.
While the rest of the podcastnanigans were embellished, his actual title is Dark Overlord.
boom
Am I able to tell when my FG+ membership expires?
If you click on the new “Account” link in the gray login area: http://www.fangraphs.com/plus/my-account/ It will give you all your subscription information.
test
Easiest decision of the day.
May Fangraphs outlive us all!
I love this model.
I have been a satisfied FG+ user for the last three years so know how valuable that content is. I have to say this is one of the most transparent and reader affirming methods of monetezation systems I have ever come across. To say “we believe in our writing, it’s value and the content of the site and we hope you do to” is a really nice way to invite your readers to participate rather than forcing them to. I will gladly be adding the membership once my Fangraphs+ membership expires. I hope it works out well!
I’m super happy to support y’all. Rarely comment but its a regular read.
Is there a way you can guys can kill or change your mobile ad provider? Its nearly impossible to read articles when I click through from twitter because of a mobile ad that redirects me to a new page, or opens the app store directly for some stupid pay-to-play game.
This a thousand times!
This is exactly what happens to me.
Done !
Okay, I joined this pyramid scheme… I may be starting as Order # 27950 but once my payment clears I’ll be Mr. Observant, FanGraphs Supporting Member (Italicized)!
Thanks Dave! Done and done–keep up the great work everyone!
Seconded.
Thirdended
Just want to see my italicized “FanGraphs Supporting Member” label.
Thanks for the content and very reasonable payment model.
I just signed up so if I bitch about an article, no one can say “did you pay for it?”
Purely selfish on my part (also because I generally love just about everything on this site)
Looks like the email still identifies the service as FG+
Also, will this uptick in revenue allow Cistulli to secure a home loan?
And a shave?
Have some of my money. I like this website.
Interesting model. I intend to partake.
Sullivan $5
Szym $4
Sarris $4
Sporer $3
…
Dammit, I messed up my budget. Update the auction calculator, please.
#slacktivism
I’d like a member perk to be a penthouse suite at whatever obscenely luxurious hotel the writers stay at for the winter meetings.
who needs zuckerburg imma do this instead!
Happily hand over $20. This is a great site doing amazing work. Thanks for all you do.
20 bucks? I’ll alow it
it says pay with credit card if you don’t have paypal, but I am having trouble actually selecting that option. Sorry if I am just missing it, but clicking the link to proceed to paypal only brings up a login screen, but no guest or credit card option. Thanks.
I’m also wondering this; does one need to sign up for PayPal to bypass the PayPal option?
We are investigating an alternative payment processor. It seems a paypal account is required for our particular payment options, but I hope to have that fixed soon-ish.
Found the new option and used it. Thanks.
Thank you for the alternative option.
Related to this, has there been any consideration for a Patreon-like “tip jar”, where we can donate any money beyond the $20? I’d like to support y’all even more, but don’t wish to pay for T-shirts.
Could you add an option for $40 or $50 or whatever amount per year for those of us who want to not feel guilty about using AdBlock? I’ll pay to support the site, but I just won’t view ads. Don’t watch them on TV, don’t read them, etc. In lieu of that option to pay more, I guess I can create some other log-ins and subscribe each of them at $20 a year, as well. Thank you for offering this easy way to support the site. Enjoyed the Wash. Post article, congrats on the success!!
Here are my demands:
Notgraphs – BACK
Kiley – 1 article a month
Eno – 1 lock of his hair to locks of love
Carson – Emcee work Xmas party
Dave – must meet my wife so I will no longer be the snarkiest person she knows
I’m in, can’t thank you guys enough
Is there any way to ensure that my membership fees go directly to paying for Carson’s flights to Florida to interview his grandfather?
What is NotGraphs? Been lurking on this site for about a year.
A side-blog which combined coverage of funny things happening in baseball with (sometimes pseudo-)philosophical musings. Popular categories included Nickname Seeks Player, where we assigned players peculiar nicknames; A GIF and a Tune, where a highlight-reel play was synced up with an apt musical choice; the Ironic Jersey Omnibus, your guide to the most absurd custom jersey choices for each team; and the occasional poem.
The Patrick Dubuque article “Dangerous Experiment: A Roster of 25 Adam Dunns” is (in this writer’s opinion) one of the funniest things ever posted on the internet.
Since NotGraphs’ untimely (and hopefully temporary) demise, its authors have scattered: Mr. Dubuque writes for Baseball Prospectus; Mike Bates has relocated; Dayn Perry kept his CBS day job; David G. Temple reassigned to TechGraphs; John Paschal and poet laureate Bradley Woodrum (with help from Mr. Temple) are running the humor blog Banknotes Industries (link in my username).
Pending FanGraphs Supporting Member
Here’s the article Brian’s referring to. CAUTION!!! do not read this from your desk at work and/or while consuming liquids of any type:
http://www.fangraphs.com/not/dangerous-experiment-a-roster-of-25-adam-dunns/
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but how soon will the ZIPS projections/Depth Charts be added? Thanks.
When they get done releasing all of the teams.
All the teams were completed last week.
Great value for $20 year.
Getting me through my workday is definitely worth the $20
I’ll pay double this if I can get defensive splits, and triple if I can get double splits for all stats in addition to the defensive, and quadruple for an economic stats page (Total/team historic payroll, revenue, breakdown of total/average player salaries by FA, arb year, minimum, etc) in addition to the first 2 requests.
$20! No more cold showers for Eno.
This money is going towards the cost of Eno having Heady Topper shipped to him every week.
More than happy to support you guys. Well, I said the same about Serial…
Yay FG
The psychology of this approach is great and it works. I didn’t sign up for FG+ because I didn’t really care about that content. But, simply give me the option to support the site without offering anything additional, and now I want to do it.
The thing I would say though is that I don’t really feel I need to have it say on every comment that I’m a supporting member. Not a big thing though.
Not-quite-yet FanGraphs Supporting Member
You’re forgetting the psychology of feeling like a cheapskate chump by not having the Supporting Member seal of approval on your comments. I’d have paid sooner if the firewall at work wasn’t blocking that link, just so I wouldn’t feel like I’m being labeled as non-appreciative.
Yeah, it’s pretty distracting. A smaller font or an icon instead might be less obtrusive.
Like Twitter’s verified checkmark, but green instead? Or something? I could be into it.
Spend my $20 better than the Reds please.
(..and thanks for the great content over the years.)
Anyone have change for a 5,000 dinar bill?
You realize that’s less than five dollars, right?
Why don’t you bump it up to $25 per year and include a free t-shirt?
Anyway we can pay with just a PayPal balance and not a credit card?
Done. It’s the least I can do to support a site that is open on either my phone,laptop or tablet close to 24/7
I don’t remember if I was a FG+ subscriber last year so I’m posting this to find out if I’m now a member.
Hey, look at that!
I’m following in Byron’s footsteps.
Me too.
Oh mannnnnn… better right this wrong TOOT SWEET.
I wonder how much revenue has generated in day one
In in in, a thousand times in!
Okay…but I’m still waiting for the weekly Tuesday Edition of Fangraphs Audio
Will there ever be a Fangraphs app for the Android OS now that Android is way more popular than iOS?
Done and done. This is my #1 website (at least if the metric is Time Spent) and $20 is a bargain for all of this great content.
Done. Now spend some of it to pay Carson to pre-record the ad in the weekly audio-program. He is clearly getting tired of saying the same ad each time and his enthusiasm is hilarious worse and worse each go through. It is interesting hearing him say the same thing a different way each time though.
Actually I would be amused if instead of the ad he just read the interesting names and cities of people who have become a member today.
Happy to join. Great value.
Is there an option to pay cash? I’d seriously drive over to the Appelman residence after work tonight and pay in person.
$20 per month would probably still be a bargain!
You know, if Peter Angelos were a reader you could have approached him first and likely gotten the site funded for the next 100 years.
Hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since I started reading this site. I always tell this joke about how in school I hated math and was constantly that kid who was like, “I’m never gonna need to know this!” Now I spend HOURS of my free time staring at numbers. When you guys came around I wasn’t a fantasy player or a SABR guy, I just knew I loved the game and hated Joe Morgan.
I realized recently that I am more engaged and interested in the baseball offseason than the football season these days. Thanks for continuing to make the game more interesting! To use a time-worn platitude, what you’re doing is good for the game!
I’m grateful and happy to support the site. Thanks for all the hard work!
Paid. If you guys do a shirsey, with the Fangraphs logo on the front and maybe choice of name and number on the back, I’ll buy one of those bad boys too.
any coupon codes? 😛
The coupon code is NOTGRAPHS20!
BRING BACK NOTGRAPHS!
This is an amazing website. Happy to do it.
Would second the comments about the mobile experience though, drives me insane.
I gazed into the eyes of David Appelman and he demanded $20 of my soul. Then he ravished me.
Macho Man voice: OH YEA!
Best 20 bucks I’ve spent since paying a cleaning lady at a Cuban hotel to stuff as many Heinekens into my tiny hotel fridge as possible for the entirety of my seven-day stay.
Done. Well worth it.
Oh, Hell. I give up.
I’ll be happy to contribute as soon as you figure out how to prevent FG from crashing my Safari. Started happening a few months ago and I have been a much less frequent visitor since.
Use a better browser?
Happens on Chrome too although I’ve noticed that it may be happening somewhat less lately. I think it’s more to do with the interface with new Mac OS. I think it has to do with the tenacious video ads. These are much more insistent on FG than on any other site I usually visit.
Sorry, I was being flippant. I’ve never had a problem with it on any browser or PC (I’ve got a Mac and a PC).
Is there a discount for the Hardball Times Annual if we sign up for the membership. I have had a paid subscription for the last two years, and I recall receiving a discount on the annual when I renewed.
Thanks for maintaining a great product.
> If you are an existing FanGraphs+ subscriber — most importantly, thank you for your decision to support us already — and your subscription has not expired, you will be grandfathered into FanGraphs Membership until your existing FanGraphs+ subscription expires. If you feel that this is not satisfactory. and you have subscribed to FanGraphs+ since November 1st, 2015, please fill out a contact form and we will be happy to offer a full refund on your existing FanGraphs+ subscription.
You guys’ are the best! This doesn’t apply to me but you really know how to keep your loyal customers satisfied! I can’t properly describe how great this site is. The quality is fantastic (even compared to non-=sports sites), the community is outstanding and engaging, and the FG team treats readers like family even though they could take advantage of them for short-term outperformance. FG will take over ESPN at some point for mainstream MLB commentary.
Enjoy the site, come here every day. Don’t comment a lot. Thanks for all the hard work, which I know is a labor of love for all you guys
Are there any plans to have an app for iPhone?
Had to wait until I got paid, but I’m in!
I would really like a simple FanGraphs decal for my laptop.