PSA: Taking a break from Simply Ballin to "some" extent going forward

Just a quick PSA around content for the foreseeable future

So, it sucks to write this out with the still the season going on and before the playoffs have ended but life has “life-d” and right now, the commitment and effort to creating content has to, unfortunately, be cut down a lot.

I thought before the season that committing to just weekly pieces would be doable but I severely underestimated the time it all takes to watch/rewatch, prep, plan, and do everything else that revolves around covering the Miami Heat. Who would’ve thought that trying to cover a team in such a way would be that time consuming?

Now, I just can’t commit to that kind of time anymore for a while, which means changes to how I approach this, the level of commitment I can have, and what kind of content I’d be able to put in given new circumstances.

The way the season has been lately and how it’s looking to end for the Heat also made it easier to cut the season short. It’s only a few weeks left with around 15 games left, so there’s not a lot to miss out on for this season. Plus, who also really wants to see breakdowns on the Heat constantly blowing leads and not scoring?

That’s why going forward, there won’t be a commitment to the same kind of volume or type of content. That means no The Culture Report is written in a way that covers all of the games, breakdowns, various topics, and additional standalone analysis elsewhere, as well as no game notes.

I’m still looking to provide “something” at least regularly until the end of the season and then whenever it calls for content and when time frees up during the off-season. The content right now may be more discussion-based, with no “regular” consistent ideas(game notes, TCR, what’s been heating up), and more standalone pieces that don’t really look to cover the team with what’s going on.

One thing I’ve realized looking back at my content strategy for this year is despite wanting to make it weekly to get away from being tied to the gruesome NBA schedule where it’s 3-4 games, I made my content still revolve around that and it was way too much… I just made it to be on one day instead of multiple days throughout the week. The prep for that kind of content was still something that was so time-consuming considering everything that went into it. I forget that even watching/rewatching games alone can take around 2 hours in total.

My “change” didn’t really free me up from this, which was actually meant to be able to do this in my spare time as a side thing. And that’s what I’m finally looking to do now. That’s another thing I have to realize and remember how to do this is a constant work in progress that I just have to keep figuring out as I go along. A lot of it simply comes down to not trying to do everything when it comes to covering the Heat because it is impossible to do everything.

I want to freely just create content for a while without some weird, arbitrary expectations or standards of covering a team that I made up in my head. It’s just a mental shift for me where I’m not covering the team anymore, but simply creating content around the team. That way I won’t feel that I’m not doing a good enough job because I’m not covering the team in a way that I’d expect myself to. That’s where the pressure of needing to do everything came because I feel otherwise, I’m not really providing much value to anyone. If I’m not breaking down everything that’s been going on, then what am I really giving the readers?

That’s what I want to get away from thinking for a while. I just want this to be solely for fun without worrying or thinking about “growth”.

Seeing as this was also my first season writing up content on Substack, I also want to thank everyone who has subscribed, liked, or shared any of the content. I know this may not seem big but reaching 118 subs, over 200 followers, and getting over 2k views a month is wild to me and I really appreciate all of that support. It honestly means a lot to think that people continue to take their time and read my work because they get something out of it when it comes to the Heat.

The long-term plan of Simply Ballin is still there to grow all of this. That hasn’t changed and it won’t stop. The approach has changed and will likely be very fluid as I go along.

So, again, thank you to everyone that have supported my content this season and I hope you will all still stick with it even if it’s going to be less content than what it’s been.