By Josh:
In July it will be 10 years since I started 9 Inning Know It All. I never expected it to be much more than a site I could write and rant about baseball. When I got the official logo it was huge for me. The first time I got a shirt with the logo on it I was so happy. Then my first press pass, my first interview, my first photo published in a newspaper, and on and on the firsts kept coming and with each one I was surprised by the sites success.
Then everything changed in 2015. I got my first taste of really covering college baseball, when Lower Columbia Community College allowed me to come in and cover the baseball and softball teams. I was having so much fun doing it, but something that was said to me in the first year of covering Lower Columbia got me thinking.
A coach who had coached at a couple bigger schools told me that the coverage I was giving JUCO baseball teams was more than a lot of colleges, even some NCAA D-1 schools get. At first I didn’t believe that statement, but over the years I’ve come to realize the truth in that. Many JUCO, NAIA, NCAA D-2, NCAA D-3 and even some NCAA D-1 teams barely get any coverage, and that began to weigh on me.
Three years ago I started working on the idea of creating additional 9 Inning Know It All sites (9 Inning MLB, 9 Inning MiLB, 9 Inning College, and more). However, the path I was going down didn’t seem right, so I stopped, but the idea stuck with me.
Last year I talked with someone who gave me a number of ideas about ways I could take the site in terms of growth and as a potential business. It was a great conversation but with all that happened in 2020 I didn’t see any potential for me to keep doing anything baseball related in 2021. I honestly didn’t think their would be baseball in the NW and I would just shut down things.
Then on February 21, 2021, two days before my 40th birthday, I decided to give it all one last shot, but I knew I had to do it differently. So I took the leap and started NW Baseball Report. Three months later it has gone farther in that time than I expected it to do in the first 3 years. With that success has been the desire to continue adding new regionally focused sites.
So last week I started NW Softball Report and on Thursday I started SW Baseball Report. These expansions are exciting for me as I will get the chance to highlight and promote more players and teams.
It also adds new challenges. The amount of time that is going to be required to keep all the sites active is going to increase as is the cost to keep things going. So if there are any individuals interested in writing for any of the sites let me know. If you are interested in becoming a supporter of the sites please consider becoming a Patreon Supporter by clicking the link.