When I made the decision to switch Pirates Prospects to a subscription site, it was with a primary goal in mind: expanding and securing a long-term future for the site. The old ad model, which kept the site free for six years, just wasn’t working. The last few years saw the ad revenues becoming more unreliable, and the ad rates dropping. This was something I had no control over, and the result was that the site was expanding in traffic, but staying the same or declining from a revenue stance.
As you can imagine, this made it difficult to expand and add more coverage of the minor league system.