Introducing Blaugrana Chat: A new way to read (and support) Barca Blaugranes

Hello friends! As the great Jay-Z once said, allow me to reintroduce myself: I am Renato Gonçalves, lifelong Barcelona fan, Deputy Manager at Barça Blaugranes and (beloved?) 11-year veteran on the writing staff. I have always wanted to produce more longform, in-depth content for the site (stuff like this, and this, and this, for example), but longform, in-depth content takes up a lot of time and resources. Watching matches takes literally hours, and subscribing to services that show matches and provide access to scouting and statistics cost (a lot of) money.

We have a very small staff with busy lives outside of the work we do at BB, and we work as hard as we can within our limitations to provide both quantity and quality of content to supply Barça fans with the best possible information day after day, season after season. We are very proud of our achievements, but we also know we can always do better to serve our readers.

I personally would love to write longer pieces more often, especially those where I get to sit, watch film, take notes, and try to explain a little more of what’s going on beyond the obvious “this team scored more goals than the other team” and “the coach sucks and should be sacked by I have no idea why, but everyone else is saying it so why not!” stuff.

So I had an idea for a new project called ‘Blaugrana Chat’: a place for exclusive, premium content written for and supported by Barca Blaugrana readers. It’s on a popular subscription service called Patreon, and you can already subscribe and join the page by clicking HERE.

With your support on Patreon I will finally be able to produce such longform content and also send a thank you note in the form of a weekly Newsletter sent exlusively to Patreon subscribers with tactical analysis, opinion pieces, player profiles, subscriber-only Q&A’s and much more. Subscribers will also get the chance to vote on exclusive polls and have a say on articles that will be published on the Barca Blaugranes website.

The Blaugrana Chat page does not at all impact the content you already read here every day. BB is not behind a paywall now; absolutely 0% of the daily content and extensive match coverage you see on this site will be posted on Patreon. But if you choose to subscribe you will be getting extra content you can’t read anywhere else, and your support will be hugely appreciated and rewarded by yours truly. I also hope to start a podcast in the near future, and your support will also be crucial in getting the ball rolling in that direction.

The first Newsletter will be published next week, but you will already be able to vote on polls and suggest articles to be published on BB until then. Subscribers will be charged just 5 dollars a month, so you’ll be basically paying a symbolic fee to help support the work we do here.

I’m very excited about this project and I hope you’ll consider subscribing and supporting your favorite Barcelona fan site and your favorite Barcelona writer 😉

Thank you in advance for your support and Visca el Barça!