HBCU Sports activities is looking on readers and supporters to assist elevate $10,000 within the subsequent seven days to maintain its writers on the job and its impartial protection of Black faculty athletics alive.
The 28-year-old outlet, acknowledged because the nation’s longest-running digital publication devoted to traditionally Black faculties and universities, launched the emergency marketing campaign Wednesday amid what founder Kenn Rashad described as an “unsustainable monetary shortfall” that has already impacted payroll.
In a YouTube video posted final month, Rashad publicly revealed that the positioning’s declining income had left him unable to pay his writers — a primary within the platform’s almost three-decade historical past. “This operation ain’t free,” Rashad mentioned within the video. “We will’t proceed to cowl HBCU sports activities on the degree our viewers expects with out the sources to assist the individuals who do the work.”
The $10,000 aim will go straight towards compensating writers and sustaining operations by means of the present season. A dwell progress tracker will probably be displayed on the outlet’s web site all through the marketing campaign, permitting supporters to observe the hassle in actual time.
Since its founding in 1997, HBCU Sports activities has reported on championship moments, long-standing rivalries and the cultural traditions that outline HBCU athletics. The outlet has damaged nationwide information, together with the 2020 hiring of Deion Sanders as head soccer coach at Jackson State, and has served as a platform for celebrating the legacy and way forward for Black faculty sports activities.
“In an period when so many impartial retailers are disappearing, dropping HBCU Sports activities would imply dropping a trusted supply for our historical past, our tradition, and our future in athletics,” Rashad mentioned Wednesday. “Each greenback raised this week will get us nearer to conserving that from taking place.”
Donations could be made at HBCUSports.com/donate. The marketing campaign will run by means of subsequent Wednesday, with each day updates posted on-line and on social media.
