A Letter From the Editor: Using this bye week to say a big ‘Thank You’ to Steelers Nation

There are moments when I feel it is appropriate to say ‘thank you’ to you, the reader/listener of Behind the Steel Curtain. The bye week is certainly one of those moments, and I wanted to take the time to let you know what we do here, for the rabid Pittsburgh Steelers fan, is something very special to all of us.

Sure, there are moments when we all use the comment section as a therapeutic outlet as the team goes into a three-game losing streak, but it is this place, and platform, which allows us to have that outlet, regardless of the reason.

The other day I was thinking about the machine that is BTSC, and thought it would be appropriate to let you, the reader/listener, realize just how well the site and podcast platform is doing.

We try our best to give those who visit the website everything they could possibly want in a website, and that approach has extended to podcasts. When I took over the website more than six years ago fans didn’t hesitate to let me know what they wanted, and also what they didn’t want, from their local gathering site for the Steelers.

While I know the team I have put together on both sides of this site is tremendous, and I couldn’t ask for more, there will always be some who see nothing but what the site/podcasts should be, in their mind, and that’s fine.

You can’t please everyone, and I realized this early on in my tenure as the editor of the site. With that said, I thought it would be interesting to let you, the reader/listener, know how the site has been doing throughout the season.

Below are our numbers for the month of September, a month where we all know about the win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 1 was the elating start of the season, followed by a three game skid which had fans wondering what the rest of the year had in store for our favorite football team.

BTSC Website Numbers:

1.07 Million unique visits

2.4 Million visits

3.6 Million total pageviews

The fact the Steelers struggled as much as they did, and the site stayed afloat during those losses was amazing. In the past, losses like that can lead to fans not coming back. It was nice to see the majority of the fan base continue to come back, despite the outcome of the games.

BTSC Podcast Numbers:

474k total downloads

I honestly don’t know what to say about the podcast platform every day. At the beginning of the season myself, Dave Schofield and Bryan Anthony Davis had daily goals for the platform. Here we are, in Week 6, the 3-3 Steelers coming off the bye, and we are shattering our goals set forth every day.

Not to gloat, but the podcast platform continues to get larger and larger by the week. It is to the point where I don’t even know what to expect anymore. I just sit back and shake my head in amazement to just how the platform has grown.

Never listened to our podcasts? Be sure to check out some of them in the player below:

To wrap this up, I wanted to thank you for being a part of the BTSC family! Without you, we are literally nothing.

Enjoy the bye week, and get ready for the big Week 8 game vs. the Cleveland Browns!