A Crowdfunding Journey

In 2012, I sent Catherine Whitaker a text message. ‘How would you feel about starting our own tennis podcast?’. Evidently, nearly eight years and 620 editions of The Tennis Podcast later, she felt ok about the idea.

The first four years of production saw the two of us doing everything - recording, editing and promoting the podcast at all hours of the day and night, and losing money in the process. We loved what we were doing - fitting in our weekly podcast conversations about tennis on a weekly basis around our day-jobs. Eventually, however, as the number of podcasts we were producing grew, and we decided to go daily at Grand Slams, we finally accepted that we needed some help if we were to continue. We had tried to obtain sponsorship with only limited success, we didn’t want to put the podcast behind a hard paywall, but such was the reaction from those that listened to us, we felt that our listeners might be prepared to show their support by pitching in voluntarily. Our crowdfunding journey had begun.

2017 - Our First Kickstarter

We asked for £10,000 to produce the weekly show, and an extra £5,000 for 45 daily podcasts at the Grand Slam tournaments, knowing that the full 60, covering daily editions at all 4 Slams, might be beyond us. Our listeners put in £16,000. We hired an editor, became obsessed, and published the full 60 Grand Slam podcasts (15 more than promised) anyway, and 106 editions of the show in all.

2018 - Building

We asked for £20,000. Our listeners put in £28,000. We hired more editors, bought new equipment and gave Matt Roberts a six-month contract upon graduating from university. It led to us producing 115 editions of the show, and experimenting by publishing daily shows at the ATP Finals with Matt on the mic for the first time.

2019 - Hiring Grad Matt

In response to overwhelming demand by our listeners to give the increasingly popular Matt Roberts a full-time job, we asked for £50,000 and held our breath. We knew that this was a big jump, and feared that it might be too big, but our audience had grown, and we knew we could only afford to keep going and growing by keeping Matt with us. Our listeners put in £53,890, and Matt got his job. We also decided to pay for him to come with us to the Australian Open, because we knew that our best shows invariably took place with all of us on-site together, and it would enable him to write a daily blog on the ground.

That went so well, we paid for him to go the the French Open as well! This was not budgeted for, but we knew it was the right decision and did it anyway. Then someone (me) had the bright idea to add daily shows at the WTA Finals, Fed Cup Final and Davis Cup finals, while also doing big interviews with Janko Tipsarevic, Larry Stefanki and Andy Roddick, and an oral history show about Rafael Nadal. We did all of that, and published 130 editions of the show. We also launched a weekly newsletter (daily at Slams, with predictions).

2020 - Bring it on

We are more motivated than ever. We will fly both Matt and Catherine to Melbourne for our daily shows, and plan to have at least two of us at all of the Grand Slam tournaments. We also want to be able to continue having Matt with us year-round, and to provide him with career progression so that we don’t lose him. We want to add more editing help so that we can do more of what we are good at, and occasionally sleep. We want to continue investing in travel, the right equipment and putting in the significant amount of time and energy that goes in to producing The Tennis Podcast. These reasons, added to the 70% increase in audience we have seen over the last 12 months, are the reasons for our increased target in 2020. More people seem to be enjoying the show, so we believe there are more listeners that will be prepared to chip in.

Where does the money go?

Having looked at last year’s rough costs, we spent virtually the entirety of the crowdfunding sum of £53,890 (approx £49,000 after Kickstarter fees) on actually producing the podcast and running the various elements that surround it, such as the website, newsletter, social media feeds, equipment, travel, accommodation, editing, Wimbledon license, and of course hiring Matt etc.

We also had some sponsorship to supplement our crowdfunding. We are very conscious of not changing the podcast because of sponsorship, and so turn down a lot of offers. One we did accept, that not everyone agreed with, was that of the Davis Cup finals in Madrid. I understand that. It bothered me that some people thought we were conflicted, and optically I can understand why they did. At the same time, we only agreed to it on the understanding that we would say what we wanted, as usual, and we did so. Those that heard the shows I believe would be comfortable that we were not compromised.

We have also decided that we will not partner with sport betting/gambling companies. We are not comfortable with it. While I enjoyed gloating about picking Stefan Edberg to win the US Open at 8/1 in 1992, and Sergi Bruguera to meet Alberto Berasetegui in the 1994 French Open, I didn’t tell anyone about the dozens of failed bets that I placed before getting into tennis between the ages of 18 and 21. Fortunately, it was only a case of winning and losing few pounds here and there, but I can see the trouble now that I could have got into. While gambling is the choice of the individual, we are not going to promote it on The Tennis Podcast.

A changing media landscape

One small additional note about our crowdfunding. We have been fortunate over the years that we have been able to attend the Grand Slams for broadcasters, who have always been understanding and supportive of The Tennis Podcast, know that is doesn’t get in the way, and promotes the work that we do for them. We have always carried out our jobs for them to the best of our ability and then recorded the podcast each day (often in the early hours) afterwards, accepting that it will come at the cost of socialising, eating at an actual dinner table, and sleeping.

Obviously we hope that we can continue to work with our individual broadcast clients, but the nature of uncertain rights and production budgets mean that we can’t necessarily rely on attending tournaments unless we are prepared to pay for the trips ourselves, when necessary. BT Sport have just lost the WTA rights, so I won’t be working for them any more, and as things stand, we will need to pay for Catherine to fly to and stay in Melbourne for the Australian Open this year as she won’t be working in Melbourne for Eurosport as she has done in recent years. We are prepared to do that, because the podcast is worth it to us (and, we think, to our listeners), because we believe in it, and because we want to turn it into a media outlet in its own right. To do so, it is up us to raise the necessary funds.

We hope that this makes sense to you. Going forwards, we would like to grow The Tennis Podcast into a profitable business that, while remaining a labour of love, is sustainable for the long term.

We have many categories for you to consider crowdfunding us in, but you can also contribute at a level of your choosing without reward, if you prefer. We are grateful to everyone that supports us, so pledge whatever the podcast is worth to you, but ultimately what you can afford.

Thank you for your support.

David Law