Introducing Ad Free Membership
Today we’re introducing a new form of FanGraphs Membership: Ad Free Membership. With Ad Free Membership, you become a full-fledged member of the site and you will not see a single third-party advertisement on the FanGraphs website so long as you maintain your membership. The price of Ad Free Membership is $50 per year.
If you are already a FanGraphs Member, you’ll be able to easily upgrade your membership at a pro-rated rate, depending on how much time you have left before your renewal date. Just select the new “Ad Free Yearly Membership” and hit the Sign Up Now button.
To give everyone a sense for what Ad Free Membership looks like, we’re going to put the site into Ad Free mode for all users through Monday. We hope you’ll like what you see. I know for the few of us who have been beta testing the product, we can attest that it really does make a noticeable difference in both the speed and responsiveness of the site.
Let me give you some details on why we’ve decided to do this. Earlier this year we introduced FanGraphs Membership, and we are incredibly thankful for everyone who has decided to become a member thus far! FanGraphs Membership is a way for you to help fund the site’s current operations and its future growth. If you think we’re doing a good job and you’d like to support our efforts, it’s a great way to show your support.
However, even with FanGraphs Membership, the majority of our revenue comes from advertising. Without advertising, there is no way the site could continue to operate. This has become a bit of a double-edged sword for us. As online advertising technology has advanced, it has also become more resource intensive, taking up both processing power and bandwidth. While there are movements within the online advertising industry to combat advertising bloat, we want to give our users a way to avoid ads completely, without cutting off the revenue stream which is essential for FanGraphs to operate. Ad Free Membership does exactly that.
We rely on various advertising networks to provide ads to us, and we do our best to vet all of these networks to make sure they’re not serving intrusive or malicious ads. But, even the most diligent ad networks have intrusive ads that slip through the cracks. Tracking down intrusive ads has more or less become a game of whack-a-mole for us over the past few years. Intrusive ads annoy us just as much as they annoy you, and we are constantly trying to make sure the advertising experience on FanGraphs is acceptable.
We will remain completely committed to having a non-intrusive advertising experience for those who would prefer not to become Ad Free Members.
It would be disingenuous of me to not mention ad-blocking. Ad-blocking is a real problem for us, but we also understand the many reasons people decide to install ad-blockers. If you are using an ad-blocker and you regularly visit FanGraphs, I urge you to become an Ad Free Member. There is now a real option for you that will help us continue to bring you high quality baseball content, without ads.
As we’ve stated before in our previous membership posts, Ad Free Membership, or any type of FanGraphs Membership is not a paywall. Whether you decide to be a member or not, all the content on FanGraphs remains available to you. We are incredibly thankful to the entire FanGraphs community for supporting us over the years and hope that we can continue to earn your support going forward.
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
Thanks, Fangraphs!
Ad blockers are a major problem across the entire internet. Most users don’t experience the externalities of their ad blockers, and don’t realize they’re literally disallowing publishers from making money. If they go to a site, and value the content on it, we as consumers should be willing to “pay” for it.
To echo what’s in this post, if you use and ad blocker but come to Fangraphs on a regular basis, you should purchase this Ad Free Membership. That is how you support the site that brings you joy.
I agree on purchasing a membership, if you can, but also if you use an ad-blocker, at least consider white listing the site here.
The only reason people use ad blockers is if the ads are obnoxious, and numerous people in the comments sections have noted how bad FanGraphs was for that type of ad in 2016. It got to the point where you debated about whether or not it was worth the bother to access the site, particularly on mobile.
I wouldn’t say “only” reason. Many people install an ad-blocker, leave it at the default settings (KILL EVERYTHING), then never bother whitelisting websites that are not intrusive.
Ads can often be a way to vector malware and such too, I’ll just note. After the issues that people have had with that at another site I frequent, I will apologize to no one for using adblockers.
That revenue model I say will likely need to be replaced with something else down the road (as a general observation). That all is not to say that a membership here is not something I am thinking of. Just that people have very sound reasons to use adblockers.
Yup, malware is why I not only have an ad blocker but also a permission prompt for javascript.
Yes. This site became literally unusable for me on my phone and laptop last year due to the ridiculously resource-intensive ads. Other sites figure this out, and fangraphs needs to, also.
Agreed. I had this site whitelisted previously until I was served up and infected ad. Strike one, two, and three right there. Never again.
As a web developer, I’ve been surprised by how many users I’ve interviewed that are trying to keep their older corporate browsers stable (on which internal legacy web apps depend) and end up resorting to plugins/add-ons that appear to developers as ad blockers but not to users. Things like javascript blockers, external link blockers, flash blocking, etc.
In any case, as someone who has asked Fangraphs for an Ad Free Membership option in the past, I look forward to signing up, though I’m a little bit surprised/impressed at how lucrative ad revenue must be per user for this to be the price.
Yeah, $50 feels kind of on the high side given that it’s almost half of what you would pay for a daily electronic-only WSJ subscription.
A digital WSJ subscription is $198/year, and thats if you get it during the 50% off sale running right now. So this is quite a bit less.
I guess that’s the direct price, but if you do some searching you can get 12 months of the digital edition for $104.99 or 24 months of the digital edition for $139.99.
Just a quick note on this. The WSJ, or NYT, or any other major publication are not ad free. Also, the WSJ looks like it’s currently at $198 for a 12 month subscription, and that is at the current 50% off discount. The NYT cheapest option right now is about $185 per year and they have a ton of advertising.
Also, there is no replacement for fangraphs. You can’t get this content anywhere else. WSJ and NYT aren’t any better than the dozens of free op-ed sites you’ve been linked to a million times on facebook.
David, how much for a membership where I never have to read jdbolick’s constant stream of whining comments on every article?
Most users don’t recognize the externalities of *not* blocking ads. I’m going to side-step the entire conversation about whether or not it’s morally okay to read things without reading the ads, and I recognize the strength of that argument.
Ad networks are really popular targets for malware because they make a great distribution venue. You can force thousands of people to run your code via loading the ad, then steal their passwords, personal information, banking information, and track them across the Internet. This is not a tin-foil hypothetical: this happens all the time. [0][1][2][3][4]
As long as ad networks continue to serve up malware in advertisements, using an ad blocker is not an unreasonable choice for a reader if only to protect themselves.
Pay for what you read. Thank you FanGraphs.
[0]: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/big-name-sites-hit-by-rash-of-malicious-ads-spreading-crypto-ransomware/
[1]: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3128289/security/spotify-ads-slipped-malware-onto-pcs-and-macs.html
[2]: https://blog.fox-it.com/2015/04/07/liveblog-malvertising-from-google-advertisements-via-possibly-compromised-reseller/
[3]: https://zeltser.com/malvertising-malicious-ad-campaigns/
[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/sep/25/malvertising
That’s a curious way of stating the general problem of ad blockers. It implies that there is some sort of honor system between publishers who offer “free” content while making money from obnoxious, intrusive ads, and readers, who generally have no way to avoid ads except an ad blocker.
I agree that one should support favored sites one way or another. And it’s great that more sites are offering ad-free membership. But most still lag years behind user demand in that regard. If you ignore your customers’ wishes, and still offer free content in a world where ad-blocking is legal and easy, your bottom-line problems are your own.
I am not interested in any way, shape, or form, in anything that is being advertised to me on the internet unless I’m deliberately shopping.
But there’s this one simple trick I need to tell you about!
Completely disagree with the first part. As the article you’re commenting on even stated, ads have become incredibly intrusive and obstructive of the website-reading experience, and contain malware, spyware, etc. I make zero apologies for using it.
I hope that the prevalence of adblockers causes lots of the internet – the section that only really exists because it can make money from ads (clickbait, Bleacher Report style sites) – to close up. There’s too much “stuff” anyway and I don’t think the current system is that worthy of support.
Intrusive ads are a major problem across the entire internet.
FWIW, I would happily view ads if archiving and tracking my browsing behavior (well beyond the individual page where the ads occur) wasn’t a part of the deal. At this point, a major reason that I block ads is that I want to exercise a modicum of control over who knows the totality of my internet use. The use of in-house ads, as another commenter noted, could help avoid that problem on FG but it’s a problem all over the web.
Ad blockers are not the problem, the root cause is the obtrusive and malicious ads which make people feel the need to install blockers. If ads had remained static clickable images, there would be no demand for ad blockers and they would never have been developed. The ad industry needs to stop thinking about short term greed and start policing itself much more effectively or else it will eventually find itself without a role – which has big implications for Web publishing (and also the reputable organisations who need to market their products). But don’t blame the end users.
Bought! Feel bad for having not previously whitelisted though…
Just curious, how does an ad-blocker actually hurt the revenue Fangraphs receives from ads? Makes sense if revenue is on a per-click basis, but you think ad-blocker users are actually going to click on an ad anyway?
If revenue is generated just from agreements with providers to have their ads posted on the site, then what’s the difference if someone uses an ad-blocker or not?
Thanks
I’d challenge your assumption that ad block users would never click on an ad. Also, I believe that websites make money from ad “impressions”, which do not require a click.
Advertisers pay for viewers, regardless of medium. Ad blockers reduce views.
We see this today with the major sports leagues. The broadcasting deals are major sums of money and it’s directly related to the increased use of DVR’s. People record traditional programming and then fast forward past the ads. You really can’t do that for live sports events, so there is a premium paid by advertisers for running ads that will actually be viewed.
And what Jimbo said.
Ive sold internet advertising on a fairly major site. We sold both per impression and per click. Per click is much, much more expensive but you can do that on advertorial.
In any event, we grossed over $1 million annually in online ad sales. Our traffic was not as great as fangraphs.
The issei is with the third party provider. They’re intrusive, resource intensive, unmanageable and only give the site a fraction of what they should be getting.
Fangraphs needs to bring their sales inhouse. Companies that manufacture gloves, bats, cleats, sell tickets, bobble heads, jersey’s, hats, sporting good stores, online resellers, cable and satellite companies that carry baseball channels, the stations themselves – SOOOO many companies would pay a pretty premium to advertise on Fangraphs – plus they’d control the content, deliver more relevant ads, the advertising return would improve, then the rate that fangraphs charges would go up. Rinse, repeat.
Online advertising is over a $100 billion industry. To me the answer is to do it right, not get rid of it. I can’t see how the ad-free offer will be better for FG than doing their online advertising the right way. One sales guy and an outsourced graphic artist (client or ad agency pays for the art anyway) and you’re in business.
Yeah, if the ads were non-intrusive and somewhat relevant (ads for MLB.com, baseball reference, OOTP, baseball collectibles, etc…) then I’d have no troubles with some ads showing up on the site. But at some point last year they got way too annoying, and that made this option necessary, sadly.
I’d bet that fantasy baseball sites would trip over themselves for exclusive advertising rights. CBS, ESPN and Yahoo with a dark horse candidate like Rotowire (who I believe FG has a relationship with already) who could obtain the rights then leverage them for their own partnership with the providers. FG doesn’t even need a sales guy to put that out for a bid.
They also don’t need a sales guy to trade advertising with an outlet like MLB Network or any of those sites to increase readership, which increases traffic and revenue potential!
Ultimately, FG is obviously aware and has probably already considered this option in some capacity. They’re busy delivering great and complex content, but are still finding a way to address the ad issue. It hurts the browsing experience and I’m sure subsequently the readership, and they’re offering an option to work around that. What if/when that segments their audience? The borderline/new/crossover readership that could tip FG in to the stratosphere of all sports websites will continue to be frustrated and discouraged because the same ad problem will still exist. The much smaller subset of loyal and hardcore followers will subscribe, but they probably drive 80% of the potentially revenue generating traffic. Which means that not only are they not capitalizing on the revenue potential, but they’re losing a large amount of their current ad revenue from this third party provider. Instead of building lucrative ad sales, you’re using the third party provider as a glorified deterrent. I hate to sound crude, but it’s almost like – 1.) Pay, 2.) Deal with these intrusive ads, or 3.) Take your revenue-generating internet traffic elsewhere. Option 1 sounds great for FG and for the reader. But I’d be surprised if even 5% of their readership does it. Which alienates the other 95% who will now gripe about the issue AND the solution (right or wrong), and discourage new readership. Option 2 is the status quo. Which since they’re addressing it, I imagine isn’t a viable option in the eyes of the FG leadership team. And option 3 is something that probably only makes sense in non-profit, unimportant or situations that are nearing an end.
Controlling the ads and giving 100% of the users the same experience removes the options and seemingly gives the best of all three. Earn more in ad revenue than you would’ve from subscriptions. Address the issue, make the current reader base happy and a reason to be loyal longtime readers instead of giving them something to complain about (again, I don’t agree with this stance – but there are a couple of those comments below – rightfully down voted, but by that 5% minority). And continue to grow traffic commensurate with the reputation and prestige of the site – I think FG should and can be one of the top visited sites in all of sports!
I don’t know the numbers, objectives or the issues. I don’t know if it’s $5 mil or $20. I just think seamlessly delivered and relevant ads would be the same or even better than ads in magazines, newspapers, TV, YouTube or any other site. And FG deserves to profit just as or more than other outlets that provide much less value to each of our respective days.
“I think FG should and can be one of the top visited sites in all of sports!”
I like your optimism, but being realistic here, the product is baseball analysis with a very heavy statistical bent. There’s a market for that, obviously (we’re all part of it), but it’s a relatively small niche in the world of sports fandom. Even if perfectly managed, Fangraphs isn’t going to get close to the traffic generated by sites which cover more sports in a way designed to appeal to mass markets.
Haha yeah that’s true and of course being limited to baseball limits the market. In retrospect, I should’ve said that differently. In the present, I’ve had a few drinks 🙂
I beg to differ about you in regards to not doing it with sports. Recording a game and starting watching it 45 minutes in is really the best way to watch a baseball game, especially playoffs.
Totally agree. I watch a lot of baseball, almost entirely time-delayed so I don’t have to watch commercials. Plus, I am an early morning person, so I DVR games and watch them the next morning — I did that almost exclusively for the playoffs and WS.
It depends on your ad arrangement. Cost per click, cost per impression, and cost per action are the three most common types, then your ad deal can focus strictly on one or provide varying benefits for all three. I agree with you that the people who use ad blockers are very unlikely to click an ad except by accident, but in a deal that includes cost per impression then it might cost the page half a cent or so every time their page is loaded by an ad blocked browser.
The way the majority of internet advertising works is on a cost per impression basis or in internet ad jargon, “cpm” (cost per 1000 impressions). The publisher gets paid each time an ad is shown on the page. If you’re using ad blocker, the ad never gets shown and no money can be made.
If you make an agreement with a specific company to sell ads on your site, it will most likely still be in some form of “cpm” agreement. Usually X number of impressions over Y amount of time for Z amount of dollars. Even if you are paid up front for the ad buy, you are obligated to meet the required number of impressions, in what is usually a “make good” clause in the contract.
So, even if you are getting money up front (which is almost never the case for FanGraphs), ad blocking would still decrease your overall ad space inventory and directly decrease your revenue overall.
There are other types of models such as “cost per click” (cpc) or “cost per acquisition” (cpa), but at the end of the day, you are measuring both of those in “effective cost per 1000 impressions”. It all really boils down to how much you can make from each ad impression, regardless of the actual model, and ad blocking directly decreases how many impressions you have, which directly impacts revenue.
I hope that helps explain things. It’s definitely not obvious if you’re not knee deep in the internet advertising waters.
If all ads were paid for up front without accountability for actual impressions and ad viewership was only measured in “site visits”, or “unique users”, ad blocking would be considerably less detrimental to publishers and I believe more similar to how TV advertising works.
Thank you David, this is very informative and helpful.
Just FYI for anyone using an Adblock, if you care about the site, remove it from your Adblock software. It’ll still block other sites, but I read FG all day and it’s the least I can do.
I did, and I enjoy Fangraphs and read regularly, but their ads literally crashed my browser. Intrusive isn’t even the right word for ad services that lock up my browser, interfere with my work, and block content, as well as slow down the website.
I’ll consider the ad free membership. I won’t consider whitelisting them again until there’s some evidence that their ads won’t break my browser.
I, also. I spent very much time last year on recovering from crashes caused by FanGraphs and ads popping up multiple times in the middle of pages.
Thus I am a Member and installed an adblocker.
I will consider the new ad-free membership.
Just curious, when I go to checkout it shows my renewal date as Feb 16. Why is it showing that the first bill is $50, then a recurring fee of $50 on 2/16? Shouldn’t the first bill be a pro-rated increase, then $50 on 2/16?
I’m happy to pay, but don’t want to pay $100 for something that’s $50.
I have the identical renewal date, and I was pro-rated for 3.44$, which is a bit lower than I’d have expected.
Ah, ok. It’s a weird layout. My pro-rated fee is the same as yours, but since it shows 2 sub-totals, it looked like it’s a $50 fee now & later.
BTW, love, love your work Tango.
Thank you for the kind words!
I just checked and it looks like you only have one subscription. If for some reason you do get billed twice, please let me know (david-at-fangraphs.com) and I’ll take care of things immediately.
I think the way the upgrade works is it does the following calculation: Days until next payment * ( New Price Per Day – Old Price Per Day ), so you are specifically only being charged for the difference in the price for the remaining days of your subscription.
Thank you Dave. It charged the pro-rata fee correctly. The layout on the checkout page was a bit confusing, that was all. Crisis averted 🙂
I got really excited when I thought this meant that people who were already members would go ad-free rather than creating a separate, more expensive tier that you would have to belong to. 🙁
Joined! By the way, without the ads, everything loaded so much better on Chrome (I usually have a bunch of other tabs open at work, and having one that doesn’t try to crash Chrome is a godsend).
Just turned off my ad-blocker. I appreciate this website!
Happily signed up. Is there any way this will pay for retrospective archiving of previous fangraphs audio episodes on itunes (or similar)? I have a load of time to burn and it’d be a great resource
My biggest problem with ads on FG’s is my browser locks up at least once a day on FG’s no matter what browser I use. This is very painful while I am trying to do research and spend time on FG’s. Obviously I don’t use an ad-blocker but I do use a flash player blocker. I really hate video ads auto play.I am not sure FG’s even uses that form of advertising. That said I will definitely explore the ad free version. The material on FG’s is definitely what I consider premium.
I agree with you strosfan. The thing that kills me on this site is the page constantly trying to reload itself or whatever else it is trying to do that looks like it’s reloading itself. It really slows down my computer. The page today already is making my computer happier.
I agree that FG’s content is premium and I love that I get it for free. I don’t use ad blockers and don’t plan to either.
I just feel like $50/Y is a little steep.
I bet (this are my two suggestions) if they made it a one-time payment of $50, they would get a ton more subscribers. Or, they could reduce the amount every year for returning ad-free subscribers by $10 until the amount gets to something like $9.99/YR. If they did that, no one subscriber would ever pay more than $150 for the first 5Y and then $10 for every year thereafter, and it would give incentive for people to re-up every year…but I don’t know how much ad revenue loss they would incur in either situation.
That said, FG is blazing fast right now during the “trial” period. Super fun – I’m just clicking on tons of links for the fun of it.
A one-time payment would not make sense for a site that plans to be around for a long time, but I like your customer loyalty reduction angle. While I’m sure FanGraphs will look at the response to this price point and adjust accordingly, I’m with you on feeling that $50 is pretty steep. I signed up for FG membership the first day it was rolled out because I appreciate this site and want to support it, yet more than doubling that cost for the ad-free version has given me pause. I might do it, I just don’t know yet.
I do think $50 is a little steep, but then again, I was already paying the $20, and I’ve been paying another $39.99 per year to another similar baseball site that has been refusing my requests for YEARS to get rid of its ads. They even stopped responding to my complaints. I like companies that are responsive to their paying customers, so I will just cut that subscription and use the money to pay the extra $30 here. In the end, it saves me ten bucks.
I can go see the local pony league games for free, or
I can go see the local AA team for $20, or
I can go see the Indians play the Angels for $50.
I choose Indians/Angels so I can see a Klubot / Trout showdown.
I really appreciate the way you are handling this issue.
I paid for Fangraphs+, and I paid for this new membership late last year. If I pay for a membership I don’t want to view ads and was disappointed that you forced paying members to use ad-blockers this entire time, which is inexcusable in my opinion.
It has also created a huge userbase including myself that are a) already paying a subscription fee (and in many cases, have done so for years), and b) have already enjoyed an ad-free experience via ad-blockers. Those are two barriers to getting them to fork over an additional fee for something they’ve already been contributing to, and are already reaping the benefits of.
I’m sure you’ve crunched the numbers, but it’s a questionable move, IMO. If it was a $25 fee for the ad-free experience back in February when you started the new membership program, or in November when you rolled out the “Help Support Fangraphs” pop-up campaign (which I’m sure spurred a lot more people to become members), that probably would have brought in a lot more overall revenue. I guess that ship has sailed, so now it’s time to try to milk an extra $30 from those who have already paid for a membership and have them subsidize the site for all of those people that would have paid $25 for ad-free experience but have now chosen to remain using an ad-blocker.
The way I see it:
– the 20$ membership is actually a recurring donation as a “thanks Fangraphs, for all that you”. It’s a gift from you to them.
– the extra 30$ is an exchange for no more ads. It’s on this basis that you can demand accountability
YMMV
I understand that. The $20 was never meant for being ad-free, and now there’s an option for $30 more per year that is ad-free. I’ve always been happy to pay/donate money for the content, as much as I despise the fact that they still included advertising.
I just question how effective this will be versus charging $25 for ad-free when they began the new subscription model and the pop-up annoyance blitz that later followed, last year. How many people would have paid $25 for ad-free but are instead happy with paying $0 or $20? Perhaps there are tons of people willing to more than double their annual subscription price for something they have already got via an ad-blocker that they’ve been forced to use for the past several years.
But you don’t get an option to pay for no more ads without the thank you. The same argument used to solicit the initial FanGraphs membership eleven months ago is being used here to solicit the ad-free version, yet it is more than twice the price. The $20 tier may have unintentionally created an expectation that deters some people from embracing the $50 tier who may otherwise have done so. Put differently, it’s a smaller financial jump from being a visitor to being a member than it is from being a member to being ad-free.
The pricing here is based on a heavy user of FanGraphs, who are the people we suspect might buy an ad free version. That’s where the $50 a year comes from. At the very top end of site usage, $50 probably isn’t even going to cut it, but on average it will.
If we charged $25 for a purely ad free version, we might very well be shooting ourselves in the foot.
The reason Ad Free is priced at 2.5x membership is because ad revenue is really really important to us.
We are not trying to milk our users. We are really just trying to find an business model that works (along with everyone else) in the extremely difficult internet publishing industry.
I appreciate that. I think the disjointed way that it was implemented will probably reduce the amount of people willing to pay for the full membership, and the cost is also enough that people will probably be happier to remain using an ad-blocker while still feeling they are contributing. ie: using nominal values, 5000 people paying $25 vs 1000 people paying $50 and subsidizing all the others who will pay $0 or $20 and using ad-blockers. And everybody gets access to the exact same content.
If it was $25 for ad-free I think that annoying pop-up that started in November would have been enough to drive people to pay it (how big was the spike in membership in November??). As it is, people will just settle for the $20 option with little impetus to change. And I imagine the $20 tier will disappear this time next year. At which point there will probably be only one option for some amount between $20 and $50 which will be ad-free.
The problem is 5000 people paying $25 puts less money in FanGraphs pocket than 1000 people paying $50 plus 4000 people generating ad impressions, unless you believe 2/3 those 4000 are using Ad Blockers. And I’d suspect people who already have an ad blocker running are least likely to pay $30-50 to remove ads they don’t see.
I would expect the opposite to be true, as someone not running an ad blocker presumably isn’t bothered by the ads and would therefore have little incentive to get rid of them. Ad-free membership would appeal to heavy users of the site who hate how awful and intrusive the ads on FanGraphs have been. It’s only the amount of the increase that is holding me back from choosing that option.
Appelman is apparently using a new Google Translate function for “if you want to be a cheap bastard, go ahead.”
Exactly, I liked how the original fangraphs membership wasn’t even really presented as a price in exchange for something. I think I felt better about buying it for the purpose of supporting the site than I would have felt about buying some “exclusive, premium, content” or something.
I will subscribe to the ad-free membership if NotGraphs returns.
I like the cut of your jib.
I paid for membership when that came out. I just signed up for ad free and appreciate you offering this alternative. I am unrepentant about using an ad blocker up to now. Between the security concerns and obnoxiousness (too distracting), I either block ads or stop reading sites that won’t let me block ads. I am willing to pay for content, but I will not subject myself to ads. I hope this is a huge success for you that spurs other baseball sites to this model. Thank you for offering this alternative to those of us who wanted it.
Done. Thanks for this!
I’m fine with ads unless it is something like auto play video with sound (great if you are bored at work and check some fangraphs).
Couldn’t be happier to sign up! I get far more than $50/year value out of FG and literally my only complaint about the site is that the ads here frequently kill my browser. Happy to pay the money instead, and I hope it works out as a financial net-positive for you guys.
Thanks for adding this!
The performance of ad-free Fangraphs is something to behold.
Oof, this will probably be the first paid FanGraphs thing I don’t support. Sorry, guys.
As one of the people clamouring for an ad-free membership option, and a long-term AdBlock user, I’m more than happy to pony up the extra for this. Thanks, Fangraphs, and long may you continue (and PS bring back Notgraphs).
For those of you who are insisting non-subscribers whitelist the site – do you also demand that everyone look at the screen during commercial breaks of TV?
Prior to this, I alternated between whitelisting and blocking FG ads because I wanted to support the site, but really didn’t like how slow they made everything.
Looking away and muting the TV between innings doesn’t cost content providers money (at least, not in the short term). That’s the major difference here.
TV ad revenues don’t depend on people looking at the screen, just because of how TV is designed. Most people are too lazy to get up or mute the TV which is why they’ve long been effective.
But when Tivo became popular and people started literally fast-forwarding through the ads, it actually became a looming crisis for the TV industry Look at all the shows in the mid/late-2000s that were popular among time-shifting viewers but got cancelled anyway because advertisers didn’t trust those viewers to watch the ads. Surely some time-shifters weren’t fast forwarding but advertisers weren’t willing to take them into account when doing ad buys.
The same way that a lot of good TV shows got cancelled because people were fast-forwarding through the ads, a lot of good writers are out of work right now because people are ad-blocking online.
It’s not the crime of the century or anything but you should at least understand that you’re free-riding on content that you aren’t financially contributing to, rather than rationalizing that this isn’t the case.
Give me a one-time fee for lifetime ad-free. Add a bonus, like one of the shirts, or something, maybe around $70+?
Is fangraphs working on an app?!? Would definitely pay membership fee if there was an app!
Could you make an option to join for this year without auto-renewal? Auto-renew is really the only reason I wouldn’t become a member.
Done! $3.44 now and $50/yr starting Feb 16th. Small price to pay for the value received.
Nice.
This may be the happiest I’ve ever been to spend $50.
Your responsiveness to feedback and attempts to mitigate this nebulous world of providing content/earning revenue/covering costs in a world where people still haven’t realized the “Internet” isn’t free is admirable. Basic questions:
1. Does auto-renew trigger an email warning so that you could opt out in a year if you choose to?
2. Regarding adblockers, which I admit I’ve used, have you looked into having that pop-up I’ve seen on a few sites that requests you whitelist first if it detects the blocker or you can’t read? The Guardian started this, which is one I remember.
Thank you. Go Vlad!
1. Yes, you get an e-mail 7 days prior to renewal. You can also cancel your Membership at anytime and you will not be renewed automatically, but will still have all your Membership privileges until it expires. We’re also not going to be draconian about renewals. If for some reason you were renewed and you really didn’t want to be renewed or just forgot, we will be happy to offer a refund assuming we are made aware of the issue in a reasonable amount of time.
2. Ad blockers, who are not Ad Free Members, after we turn the site back to normal on Tuesday, will see some additional encouragement to become Ad Free Members. We don’t have any plans to block ad block users.
Youppi! – I just signed up. It says that you’ll get a warning email ten days before it renews.
Separately, I went to Montreal with my girlfriend (now my wife) in 2002 and had to go see an Expos game before they left. She wanted to get a picture with the other Youppi and he groped her. She was grossed out and demanded we leave.
I would argue that the business model is the problem. You’re asking people to pay for something they don’t want (Ads), which they can get rid of for free, rather than asking people to pay for something they want (content). Its a lot easier to convince someone like me who is a very heavy user to pay for content than it is to convince me to not use free ad block. If you offer me content for a price sign me up, until then, I don’t think so.
I’ll also add that another favorite site on mine, Pirates Prospects mad a very successful transition to paid content in the last year (somewhat to my surprise) and is IMO a better option.
Well Pirates Prospects lost me when they went to the paid model, I’d rather suffer through the ads, as my wife doesn’t work because we have 2 small children. So dropping money on frivolous baseball websites really isn’t in the budget.
I don’t think you understand how this all works…
I do, you can run a pay site for content or a free site for ad revenue, that’s pretty much your only web options. I contend that most of the web is doing it wrong, the history of .coms agrees with me. Bothe Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus use paywalls for content.
Continue to provide the great content and I will happily continue to pay the $50 per year to go ad free. But if a site can’t provide compelling content, they are not worth my time.
LA Times requires whitelisting to read their content, no thanks. Their content is worth the annoying ads. I won’t even click on a CBSSports link.
Keep up the great work.
Not sure why you had some downvotes – completely agree. That’s how I feel about Forbes. I’ve simply stopped clicking on and subsequently sharing any of their posts because the content has dropped in quality over the years and it’s not worth removing my ad blocker.
Fangraphs, on the other hand, provides excellent content and I am happy to support them directly. Will be upgrading to the Ad Free Membership in the near future. I agree with the other users who hope this becomes a big success, I’d love to see more web sites move away from the intrusive advertisement business model.
this is prolly all my fault. i have adblocker on and some days spam refresh. whoops.
Mr Appleman’s contributions to the comment thread are worth some of the yearly membership price itself; it’s wonderful to see such a transparent relationship between the practical business realities of a community like Fangraphs and its members. And more specifically, membership privileges that include being able to engage content without the cognitive overhead of overlooking ads is exactly what more successful sites like this should be doing to reward both itself and its most loyal readers.
Thanks for this, happy to join at this level!
First off I commend you for offering a product that people have been clamoring for since you started having widespread ads on the site.
I wish you the best, but I’m pretty skeptical of the price point. On one hand $50 isn’t that much money; on the other hand people complain like heck about ESPN Insider content and that’s effectively $10/year (if you look for a deal on the The Magazine) and gives you access to a lot of content. I expect many people are paying not because the ads are visually undesirable but because they’re technically undesirable, bringing browsers to a halt. (For a while I had to use one browser for FanGraphs chats and one for everything else so I could frequently force kill the FG chat.)
I’ll continue to mentally block ads — not running a software ad blocker but tuning out ads when they appear.
I paid the extra because the ads are visually undesirable. And because FG provides actual analytical content. And awesome. And I’m happy to pay for their fine work in helping me better understand a sport I love.
There’s no way I would ever pay for ESPN Insider to read Hairdo Kiper’s incorrect opinion of college players or Stephen A. Smith’s “hot takes”.
I would pay a substantial amount of money to never have to hear from or of Stephen A Smith ever again.
…..how much money?
Honestly. FG comment sections are the worst when it comes to down voting. What’s wrong with the comment above? He’s not worshipping satan, he’s not being vulgar, and he’s bringing up a decent point. There’s a BIG difference between complaining and bringing up a concern. I almost never read the comments on this site, but this issue goes beyond “baseball takes.”
Paid it, love it.
Honestly, the only ads that I find annoying are the video ads that auto play no matter what, and recently a lot of them have been pulling out of the reading experience to center the ad in the middle of the screen.
I would much rather the site become like a NASCAR driver with a bunch of click through ads, which if the product interests me, I would actually click through (and the main reason that I don’t use ad blockers). I am currently looking at this and I have a lot of blank space on the sides of my screen. I wouldn’t mind ads in those spaces. I wouldn’t mind a small banner ad or sponsored content ads somewhere in or at the end of the articles.
The only problem with ads that I have are the intrusive ones. The ones I don’t care about I can ignore, but when they make me hate the company that they are advertising, they are not really doing their job.
I know it may just be me, but I would love to sign up (maybe even pay a $5 premium) but only without the auto-renewal. I understand that practically every site these days uses auto-renewal, but it really irks me that I have to proactively manage yet another membership in my life, when I’d rather get reminders to pay again every year…
Signed up. Best $50 I’ve spent in a while. Thanks, FG.
Love Fangraphs! And I personally don’t think $50 is unreasonable for the amazing in depth content we are provided every day. I will definitely be upgrading to the $50 membership; not because I care about the ads (they honestly don’t bother me), but because I think it’s worth it and the site deserves the support.
Strongly agree with this. Didn’t at all like to be called a thief by Dave Cameron, though, because it wasn’t possible to pay for an ad free FG. Now the possibility is here, I will put my money where my mouth is and upgrade. Seems a fair price to pay.
There are only two sites I pay for on the internet. This one and BP. I’m already paying 20$ a year for FG+ which is more than a year subscription to magazines like National Geographic, Motor Trend and more. But wait you say, those magazines have ads. Yes they do and they are VERY easy to ignore. If online ads were topical, stationary, didn’t blink, move, hover, or require me to X them to close them, I’d be WAY more likely to whitelist a site.
I’m just curious. What’s the annual cost to host the site and how many FG employees are full-time employees being supported by just their work at FGs?
I’ve mentioned this in other posts before, but FanGraphs isn’t pricing Membership or Ad Free Membership to line its pockets.
FanGraphs content comes at considerable cost. We have 9 full time employees, 30+ part time writers, server costs, stats provider costs, travel costs, software expenses, and just the usual cost of doing business.
If you look at things from a magazine perspective. You are paying for maybe 20 – 30 articles an issue. We publish nearly 400 pieces a month. We update our stats every single day. While I understand why comparing us to a magazine seems fair, it’s really apples and oranges.
I appreciate the polite and informative reply. I drive a 2003 car so I don’t have to make car payments. I have a library card so I don’t have to buy books. I don’t pay or watch cable TV. I don’t pay for a music subscription. I pay you guys and BP because I love what you do and it’s my way of supporting you. I’ll turn off my AdBlocker for a week, but if your ads make this site look like the 1990s websites, I’m going back to AdBlock and I’ll pray for your guys to win the lottery. Send me your address and I’ll mail you a lottery ticket, just for the off-chance that last line comes true. (I’ll get one Super Lotto and one Powerball.) Sorry that 50$ is beyond my limit of supporting you.
BTW I whitelisted you guys on AdBlock and I’m still not seeing any ads. I closed the browser, refreshed and still no ads. I did this yesterday. What does your page look like with ads and maybe there’s something wrong with the whitelisting process. I’m using Chrome.
So why not may FG a pay for content site?
How much to bring back NotGraphs?
Done! The price of a Starbucks a month is minuscule compared to the value I get from FG content.
The ads on the site are so clunky that I feel like I’m being extorted. “Pay us $50, or the site won’t work.” I would feel better about this if something was done to fix the site in the first place. (And I paid the “get nothing” membership fee willingly. This just feels yucky. I am sure you don’t make $30-$50 off the ads for my usage.)
We do our best to try and keep crummy ads off the site. The reality of internet advertising for a site our size is that we do not completely control all the ads that are shown. We work with a number of large advertising networks that are reputable and responsive when we alert them to various ad complaints. We have stopped dealing with, or have refused to deal with a number of advertising companies for various reasons, so we don’t just accept any ad network that walks through the door.
In April 2016, we did receive a number of complaints about ads, and took steps to try and fix the situation. In a survey conducted at that time, over 60% of visitors stated that ads were never a problem or that the situation was corrected, another 22% said things had improved. While having 18% of people complaining about ads is not ideal, it is certainly not the majority of people who visit the site.
Since then, ad complaints have been sporadic, and we have tried to address them accordingly.
When someone complains about an ads on the site, or a problem with a particular ad, it can be extremely difficult to track down, because most likely you are being programmatically targeted for that specific ad.
So, we are caught in a bit of a tricky situation, which I do my best to describe in my original post above.
We cannot remove ads from the site because then we would go out of business, and there is not really an easy fix, or even short term fix for the ad problem. “Cluncky” ads are not just a FanGraphs problem, they’re a problem with the entire internet.
We are very thankful to everyone who has become a member. For those who don’t want to become Ad Free members, we are still committed to providing a good site experience with ads. Even with Ad Free Membership, I highly suspect ads will continue to be far and away the #1 source of revenue on FanGraphs, so for us to try and make the ad experience crummy to drive people to Ad Free Membership makes zero sense from a business perspective.
We want everyone who visits the site to have as good an experience as possible.
I will repeat here what I said in a comment above, because I believe it applies to this comment too:
The pricing here is based on a heavy user of FanGraphs, who are the people we suspect might buy an ad free version. That’s where the $50 a year comes from. At the very top end of site usage, $50 probably isn’t even going to cut it, but on average it will.
If we charged $25 for a purely ad free version, we might very well be shooting ourselves in the foot.
The reason Ad Free is priced at 2.5x membership is because ad revenue is really really important to us.
We are not trying to milk our users. We are really just trying to find an business model that works (along with everyone else) in the extremely difficult internet publishing industry.
How do I begin the 2017 FANs projections? I can never find where to do those!
$50 is too much. I create an account just to comment on this post. I am a casual baseball fan and check this site periodically. For hardcore fans who read every articles, $50 is ok but not for me. I consider the $20 donation bit the ads are ruining the experience especially on phone
For $20, if i can read 30-50 articles per month without ad would be great for me
Here’s the weird thing: I don’t see ANY ads on your site. Apparently all of your advertising is location-based and doesn’t include overseas page views such as mine. So I already have the full ad-free experience. I’ll stick with the $20 membership.
How much for a Cistulli-free fangraphs experience? And has Banknotes Harper been consulted on how to make big internet cash?
Ordered! When can we expect a release?
Not sure if these comments are monitored, but I white listed fangraphs after reading this article.
The site is now crashing chrome on a regular basis for me.
Hi – when I try to purchase the Ad Free Membership, I keep getting an alert that simply says “Sorry, this product is unavailable. Please choose a different combination.”.
This is the first time I’ve tried to pay. Is it just a temporary issue? Take my money!!