Why I'm going independent and asking for your support

The World Cup is over, and I'm coming back to the Loons, and soccer - in a different way than before.

I've been writing about Minnesota United FC for more than a decade, long enough that I've written about this team as the Loons, the Stars, NSC Minnesota, and the Minnesota Thunder. I've had the uneasy experience of trying to fact-check something about Loons history via Google, and discovering that the only reference is something that I wrote a long time ago. (Here's hoping I was right the first time!)

But for most of that time, I've been depending on someone else to provide me an outlet. In 2024 and 2025, that was the Star Tribune, where I covered the Loons as a freelancer.

As 2026 dawned, they indicated to me that they'd be cutting back on Loons coverage, part of the general retrenchment undertaken by the sports section. It meant that the meager living I'd made as a part-time freelancer would be slashed even further.

I hold no ill will towards the good folks in sports over there; they are doing the best they can with some pretty onerous restrictions from upper management. I'd hoped to be able to catch on with them full-time, but it's not their fault that it couldn't happen. And I figured that this step backwards meant that it was time for me to be done.

And so I spent the first half of 2026 trying to figure out what I'd do next with my life, trying to figure out where I'd go in my return the corporate world. Back to real life, right?

By summer, and by the time I headed out to Seattle, to finally experience the World Cup in person, it was clear to me that I'd be better off staying away from that so-called real life, and going back to the job I truly loved: writing about soccer.

My friend Stu Neuman has had great success this year launching Midwest Excellence, a wildly entertaining newsletter (you should subscribe). And over on the baseball side, my friend Aaron Gleeman has had his own great success, moving away from a traditional outlet and going independent himself to cover the Twins (you should subscribe).

I'd always pooh-poohed the notion of going independent, fearing that I needed the support of a larger organization to make a go of what I was doing. But if I could just imitate Stu and Aaron - well, why not me, too?

There often is an almost evangelical bent to people who talk about soccer in America. You've heard the pitch before - it's the beautiful game, it's the world's game, it's the future, the call is coming from inside the house! OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY, LET THE GAME OF SOCCER INTO YOUR HEART!

I am not a soccer evangelist. I just want to talk about the Loons, and soccer, in the same way that we'd talk about the Twins or the Lynx or the Wild. (Not the Vikings. I can't handle that kind of angst.)

I also don't believe that there's much value in arguing about Where MLS Ranks In Soccer. Yeah, it's not the Premier League; yeah, it doesn't have the cultural importance in its community that Liga MX has. But I'm in Minnesota, and so is MLS, and the Premier League and Liga MX aren't.

With the Star Tribune, my coverage was often pegged to match coverage, for obvious reasons - that "writing the first draft of history" thing. What I'm planning here in this space is something different - not game stories, but analysis; less about what happened, and more about why.

Doing this independently also allows me to be a bit more myself and a bit less strait-laced, as well. Those who know me know that I'm rarely able to take these sports entirely seriously, which maybe doesn't fit in a newspaper, but is perfectly allowable here. As a beat writer, I had to color within the lines; here, I get to be a beat writer and a columnist and whoever else I want to be, at the same time.

I think there's a community out there that wants this, regarding the Loons. I think there are Loons fans that think about transfer needs and know the draft picks who are playing for MNUFC2 this year and have been wondering, vaguely, what the numbers say about this year's crop of Loons off-season acquisitions - and want to hear what someone else thinks, too. And along the way, they want to talk about happenings in the soccer world - in Minnesota and beyond - and to do it with equal parts interest and irreverence.

If that sounds like you, then I hope you'll subscribe. I'll be writing three or four times a week, and I hope you'll join me.

There will always be some free content here, so please sign up regardless. So many of you have already done so, first on Substack and then here, and I so appreciate you; I promise you will continue to get value for your zero dollars. But I hope you'll upgrade to a paid option, which will not only give you access to everything I write, but also will allow me to keep doing this in the future. I'd like to make this work, and everyone who's willing to contribute gets me closer to that goal, and makes it possible for me to continue doing this without the support of a larger outlet. Support independent media!

Even beyond what I've been writing about the World Cup, I've already gotten started with the Loons coverage. As the second half of the MLS season begins, and as the league enters its brave new post-World Cup future, and as the soccer world continues to expand and shrink at the same time - join me, won't you?