New Breakside Beginnings
Welcome to a new age
My biggest regret about the Breakside has always been my inability to give it the time and energy it deserves. This began as a school project, and I could only dedicate a fraction of my school life to it on top of work and social commitments. Then, I set the goal of continuing my project after the class ended.
The past year of doing that has been challenging.
In the past year, I’ve finished my undergraduate degree, started and dropped a graduate program, worked, and moved three separate times. It’s been hard to dedicate myself to the Breakside and grow it how I truly believe it can. Often, my workflow involves me remembering I haven’t posted anything in a couple of weeks, brainstorming, and finally coming up with an idea I’ll write out as fast as possible. Then, I’ll let the Breakside fall back on the backburner.
That is no way to grow a news/content outlet. I have not been holding myself and this publication to a high enough standard.
Well, things are different now. I’m living back home with my parents, and I finally feel stable regarding a physical place to live. I’m taking an explicit break from playing, looking to dedicate my ultimate energy to coaching or writing. And I’m ready to leave my current writing job and find something more exciting to do. Not to mention it’s a historically awful time to find a gig in journalism. So, what does all that mean?
Welcome to the Breakside 2.0!
Breakside 2.0 is my brand-new commitment to this platform. I want to give it the time and energy it deserves to live up to the goals I set for it. Starting now, I plan to treat the Breakside like a job for the foreseeable future. Yes, that means 30-40 hours a week of work on the Breakside. I have laid out a plan for content, a timeline of goals I want to hit, and ways I hope to grow this platform as a media outlet for ultimate.
For starters, I want to diversify the kind of content I am creating and create it consistently.
I have a lot I want to do. I want to bring back interviews and profiles. Dedicating more time to the Breakside will make that much easier to accomplish. This community is filled with incredible people who deserve to have their stories told! I want to provide a deeper analysis of on-field moments or entire games. There is so much knowledge about this sport, and so little is shared openly and easily accessible.
I also want to attend tournaments and games in person to provide an alternative outlet and style for covering live events. I even want to invite guest contributors to feature their work on the Breakside. (If you have something you think would fit well here and want to share with an audience, reach out and tell me about it.)
Not to mention that I will be keeping stats of the WUL (and maybe PUL, too) this year! So, I hope being more immersed in the data will help me be creative with my coverage. More massive WUL spreadsheets are possibly coming your way. I'm working on a handful of exciting opportunities during the summer and club season. I hope they turn out well, and I can share them with you all soon, too.
So, without further ado, here is the current planned content (things I’m actively working on) and the roadmap for where I want to take the Breakside in the coming months!
Planned content:
USAU WUC diversity and economic sustainability thoughts (coming within the next week)
Mystery interview number one (coming next week)
Mystery interview number two (coming within the next month)
Film case study — Quandary reset defense vs. Pleaides ‘22 Nationals (coming within the next month)
Attending and covering Easterns (coming early-mid April)
Much, much, more!
Short-term goals:
Begin and maintain a consistent output of 3-6 full-length posts per month
Experiment with live coverage of tournaments beginning with College Men’s Easterns (3/30-31)
Grow the Breakside to 350 subscribers (50% increase)
Medium-term goals:
Experiment with multimedia content for the Breakside (video, podcast, other?)
Continue to cover live events
AC College Regionals
Local-ish Club teams and tournament coverage
Pro gameday coverage (Flyers and Radiance most likely)
Feature and platform guest contributors
Increase engagement with my audience
Discord server?
Discussion posts on substack?
Grow the Breakside to 500 subscribers (125% increase)
Long-term goals:
Enhanced coverage of live events (doing something genuinely novel)
Somehow, create a good and accurate score reporter
Cultivate a deeply engaged community
Create a paid subscription tier that offers the audience more input into the coverage and supplemental income for me
I need your help to make this happen!
Of course, this will be challenging. I have no idea how this will go, how hard it will be to maintain consistent, high-quality content, or if there is a serious desire for something like this. But I’m going to do it anyway, and one other goal I have is to be more obnoxious about asking for your support. Subscribe if you haven’t already! Share this post with someone who isn’t if you are! Like it, comment on it, go crazy. Tell me what you want to see. I want and need your input for this to grow and thrive. If you help get 15 new subscribers before the piece is ready, I will spoil who mystery interview number one is. As always, thank you so much for your support.
About The Breakside
This newsletter aims to tackle the gap in present coverage of ultimate as a sport. Commentary, analysis, and community are some of the guiding ideals behind the Breakside. If you liked what you read, subscribe! Or share it with a friend who will also enjoy it.
About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am a journalist by trade and have been playing ultimate for over half my life. I love nothing more than combining those two interests. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter (@noamgum) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).
heck yeah