The Gymternet

Flashback to the summer of 2014. I was newly out of college, working only part time, going to bed in the wee hours of the morning and waking up in the afternoon, and only mildly panicking about what to do with my life. A little after midnight on July 19, while watching Dawson's Creek on Netflix and Ambien-blogging my reactions, I was like "I should start a gym blog." I manic-messaged my friends informing them of my plans and they were like "cool, go to bed." But I didn't listen, and a few hours later, I had a fully-functional live website called The Gymternet. I started covering my first meet, the 2014 Commonwealth Games, immediately, and the site was a literal overnight success with 12,000 views on day one thanks to gym fans who wanted coverage and interviews and insight they couldn't get anywhere else. Three years later, the site has grown into a full-time job and has led to some incredible opportunities (like writing a bunch of young adult books and working for NBC Olympics and winning an Emmy Award, no big deal). While I have some ad money coming in each month that I budget for travel to cover meets, as we keep growing and expanding, that money isn't stretching as far as I'd like, especially as come into the Olympic year with about a dozen meets I'd love to cover live, including the Olympic Games. With bigger opportunities come bigger expenses, and the fact is that I am running this website solo with just a few hundred dollars a month coming in from Patreon supporters and ads. I spent the first four years of my gymnastics "career" self-funding every opportunity I had to attend meets, and since starting my website, I've had some help from some great people who have contributed, but I still self-fund more than half of my gymnastics travel each year, and this year, based on what I've spent so far and have planned going forward, I will have to self-fund about 70% of these trips. With so many big meets this year, including Olympic trials and qualifiers as well as the Games themselves, I have the goal of attending as many as I physically and financially can, and so I've decided to release a weekly podcast – The Gymterpod, naturally – available only on Patreon to subscribers who pledge $5 or more per month (a $10 monthly donation will get you the podcast plus priority on the You Asked question queue, and $20 gets you both of these plus an additional monthly audio commentary for a meet you can follow along with on YouTube). Because I don't believe in pay-only content, everything you hear in The Gymterpod will be covered somewhere outside of the paywall, whether through an article recapping a meet on my website, via a retweet of an athlete's upgrades, or in a ''You Asked, The Gymternet Answered" post. But the weekly podcast will tie all of these together for your listening ease, with each one including the biggest news of that week (with all of my thoughts and opinions, of course), a recap of that weekend's competitions, a preview of the upcoming weekend's competitions, and a tiny audible version of "You Asked, The Gymternet Answered" where I answer three questions not featured in any website edition. I plan on releasing The Gymterpod beginning Monday, January 20, and the first episode will be free so you can get a taste of what to expect going forward. If you feel like supporting the website and all of our planned coverage in 2020, you can then subscribe for $5 a month to help us meet all of our coverage goals. But if you don't want to, or can't, help us out financially, I get it, and I promise that my website and social media coverage will be better than ever, so you don't feel like you're missing out. So far in 2020, I have budgeted to attend the following trips: <ul><li>Mar 6-7 – American Cup – $600</li><li>Apr 30-May 3 – WAG European Championships – $1,000 (flight and shared Airbnb booked)</li><li>May 7-10 – Pan American Championships – $700 (flight and hotel booked)</li><li>Jun 4-7 – U.S. Championships – $600</li><li>Jun 25-28 – U.S. Olympic Trials – $900 (hotel booked)</li><li>Jul 22-Aug 5 – Olympic Games – $4,000 (flight and media hotel booked)</li></ul> I've also planned on potentially planning to travel to at least some of the following, with the men's European Championships a priority, if I can raise the funds, but haven't actually budgeted for them yet: <ul><li>Feb 20-22 – Winter Cup Challenge</li><li>Apr 2-5 – City of Jesolo Trophy</li><li>Apr 24-25 – American Classic</li><li>May 23 – U.S. Classic</li><li>May 27-31 – MAG European Championships</li></ul>

Free

<ul>
<li>Access to behind-the-scenes content at competitions not posted anywhere else</li><li>A special thank you at the bottom of all website posts.</li>
</ul>

Special Thanks

<ul><li>Access to weekly podcast available only on Patreon</li><li>Access to behind-the-scenes content at competitions not posted anywhere else</li><li>A special thank you at the bottom of all website posts</li></ul>

The Gymterpod

<ul>
<li>Access to weekly podcast available only on Patreon</li><li>A separate monthly podcast where I answer You Asked, The Gymternet Answer questions</li><li>Access to behind-the-scenes content at competitions not posted anywhere else</li>
<li>A special thank you at the bottom of all website posts</li>
</ul>

The Gymterpod+

<ul>
<li>Access to weekly podcast available only on Patreon</li><li>A separate monthly podcast where I answer You Asked, The Gymternet Answer questions</li>
<li>Your questions for our "You Asked, The Gymternet Answered" posts go to the top of the queue</li><li>Access to behind-the-scenes content at competitions not posted anywhere else</li>
<li>A special thank you at the bottom of all website posts</li>
</ul>

A Leap Above

<ul>
<li>Access to weekly podcast available only on Patreon</li>
<li>Your questions for our "You Asked, The Gymternet Answered" posts go to the top of the queue</li><li>You can commission an article on literally whatever you want in gymnastics, once every two months</li><li>Access to behind-the-scenes content at competitions not posted anywhere else</li>
<li>A special thank you at the bottom of all website posts</li>
</ul>

Recent posts by The Gymternet