Second Wind - Q3 2026 Financial Report + Upcoming Plans
Hey folks!
Once again, it's time for another quarterly report here on Second Wind!
/ REPORT BREAKDOWN
As we expected, Q3 was slower on the revenue side for Second Wind. Two of our major sponsors had to drop due to financial constraints in Q2, and acquiring new sponsors has been very slow. This isn’t just a Second Wind problem, it’s something I’ve noticed across all media outlets.
It doesn’t seem to be letting up into Q4 either, as we’re just not getting many sponsor bites at the moment. This is why we’ve always made it a priority to diversify our revenue streams. As one slows down we lean a little harder on another. But reality is reality, and the current economic conditions of the world make us even more of a luxury than we already are!
We’ve got a sustainable business, even with the razor thin margins that we have. Our Patreon, and YouTube revenue has remained stable, we’ve done well with bigger merch drops once a quarter, and we’ve reduced expenses in areas where we’ve needed to make sure we remain stable.
There’s no expectation from anyone here that Second Wind will ever be a company that makes a ton of profit. But we do want to make sure we’re in a position where we’re not constantly having to fight to be profitable. You know, the dream of pretty much every business.
We’ve got a big team to support to make Second Wind what it is. The recent audience survey I sent out gave us an excellent amount of feedback on the outlet and if one thing rings true: that our audience loves the variety and comradery we offer as a team. It’s by far our strongest asset (aside from Yahtzee, duh) and one that I hope we can convince even more people to join and support as we head into 2027.
Andy Robinson, the Editor-in-Chief of my favorite gaming news publication Video Games Chronicle, put out a great post about the current state of games media, while also making a point of showing how even a little bit of support goes a very long way when you’re independent.
More than ever, if the game industry values its media, it needs to support them. If you manage budgets and value independent journalists' work, buy ads, sponsor content, and purchase subs. What might be a small amount to you makes a huge difference to us (a single PR campaign's spend could fund most of our work for an entire year).
And if you're a reader, consider subbing to your favorite outlet, whitelisting on AdBlock, sharing their stories, and subscribing to their channels.
It’s why I’ve continued to drive home the point over the years that I’d rather have 10,000 people watching our videos every week and giving us $1 a month for it, than chasing our own tail trying to make sure videos get a million views on every episode. One is a business model, the other is a pipe dream.
With Second Wind’s third anniversary looming just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we make sure to make Second Wind exciting not just for our core audience, but those outside of our audience… and we’ve got some fun plans cooking.
/ UPCOMING PLANS
This section will be a bit shorter as I’m not making any specific announcements today with our third anniversary event on November 13th coming up just around the corner. But as Patreon backers, I’ll give you a little insight into what we’re drawing up.
For the last two years we’ve really focused on making sure our core content line-up is strong with a variety of shows that you’re excited to return to every week or every few weeks. I think we’ve accomplished that. Fully Ramblomatic, Semi-Ramblomatic, Design Delve, Unpacked, and The Backdrop all have pretty stable audiences at this point, and the feedback survey indicated people are quite happy with the quality and content of these shows.
In 2027, I think Second Wind needs to break our own containment again. We need some projects and ideas that bring new audience members into our community. For those that responded to the survey, which would be our most engaged audience for the most part… over 85% of you came from The Escapist.
Less than 10% of the audience that responded to that survey have joined us in the last three years.
On one hand, it's an incredible stat that we have such a loyal and dedicated audience. I’d be hard pressed to find another gaming outlet with that kind of audience out there. On the other hand, the Patreon stats and the audience survey make clear we are in our own little corner and we need to do things that allow new audiences to find us. The challenge of Patreon is having more subscribers coming in than going out, and as you’ve seen from all our different experiments, that’s an egg we’re still trying to crack.
So while I’m holding specific announcements for November 13th… I can tell you were doing a few things to try and achieve that.
One of those things will be getting back to documentaries. Those are high-profile prestige projects for us that can break through the noise in the industry to offer something truly unique from us. Another thing will be experimenting with some videos that take our art style, animation skills, and writing chops to make something a little more… shareable for wider audiences.
Other things like looking at a proper audio-only podcast series, more consistent event streams, expanding into some fresh coverage areas, and as you may have seen on social media already… I’m potentially toying with the idea of some sort of website component to Second Wind. Something many of you have asked about over the years. Don’t expect anything firm on that at our upcoming event, but it is something I’m actively exploring as an option for us to try.
Second Wind is always at its best when we’re being nimble, ambitious and creative. And to bring in new audiences, we need to make sure that while we’re consistent, we’re also doing things that excite people. All while making sure we’re not working ourselves to death, of course. With that in mind, you may see some changes over the coming months as we get organized for 2027, but as usual we’ll communicate any changes we do make.
/ EDITOR'S NOTE
Wrapping up this quarterly report, I’d love to hear your thoughts about Second Wind potentially having a website component. Something focused on original column work from a variety of authors both from Second Wind and outside.
Is that something you’d actively support, subscribe to, or be interested in as an additional perk to your current subscription to Second Wind?
Again, just exploring ideas. Not committing to anything.
Nick Calandra
Editor-in-Chief
Comments (45)
Website introduces a whole host of new costs for servers (and as others said: AI crawling seems to be insane atm) and maintenance and I don't really see the benefit. If you wanted to drop Patreon, then your own site would make sense, but if you want to stay here, I don't see the point.
I would love a website for Second Wind. Maybe the columns from Patreon could also live there, behind some kind of Patreon-connected paywall? And maybe once the articles get old enough they could fall out of the paywall/ As someone who actually still blogs about things, being able to link to for instance Darren’s old articles, commenting on them on my blog, etc. would be great. You could also possibly syndicate some of your social media activity to such a site, something like a link blog or similar. I would love a place where I could find links to relevant news, curated by you guys but I’m not interested in using either X or Bluesky.
My default page when opening Chrome has been Google for years so having something else replace that would be great. I remember when I had ign.com as my home page, those were the days... must have been around 2001. Kept me up to date on gaming news and the buzz in the PS2 era was amazing! Anyone else remember when IGN had "babe of the week" section on their site? Simpler times. Of course I read the articles too 😏
Firstly let me just say I just love the sentence: "We’ve got a sustainable business, even with the razor thin margins that we have." So many greedy, venture capital backed businesses, would never say this sentence, instead opting to rake as much money as possible. That's what's so great about Second Wind, you guys just wanna make a loving doing what you love like the rest of us, and I can't help but support and be in awe of that. Secondly, the transparency on display is always commendable and inspiring, love it. Lastly, about the website. To me personally it would feel somewhat redundant, I already go to the Patreon app for exclusive videos and columns, having a third place with other content might be a bit cumbersome, just my two cents though. Keep being awesome y'all
Realistically for me I don't think I'd engage with a website. The idea of second wind having its own web presence is a fine one but in reality I'm already entrenched in the YouTube and patron ecosystem for content delivery. I can't be the only one... For me the days of going to a website on a PC and just browsing comics or columns etc are long gone. I have YouTube on my TV and Patreon/YouTube on my phone. The PC is for gaming. I love Second Wind but I'm not sure I could be bothered or would remember to regularly check a third source for new stuff..
Would love to see some video games related articles and columns! Darrens email is great so something similar for games (with rotating guest contributions?) would be awesome for someone who prefers articles to videos. You could also start building an audience on substack with them? Feels like thats growing as a relatively non-toxic long form content space and has good distribution (I’ve come across a bunch of authors from people re-stacking articles or quotes) so might get you all some additional eyeballs outside the core audience. Expecting a ton of non-gamer gaming discourse over the next few months with GTA releasing so would be nice to have some knowledgeable voices in the sphere rather than the same “Are games art” shtick regurgitated!
I appreciate the columns that we get from our memberships, and I'd be interested in more columns from more voices. I'm ambivalent as to whether those would just keep coming to my inbox or whether they come through a website. I mostly care about quality writing; y'all know better what the most effective way of delivering it is.
Thanks again Nick. Been supporting you guys since the beginning in one form or another back in the Escapist days, and Phoenix for life over here. Love the transparency and sustainable financial practices. Best wishes to you and the crew going into the holidays.
- I wonder if there's some level of saturation regarding the market/audience. I feel like most people already have their media diet mostly fixed and getting new people feels much harder? - A website would be great but I probably wouldn't take the time to read it
I'm glad the biggest source of income is Patreon
Hell yeah a website component would be great, if you need a WordPress developer I'm available 🤙🏽 Keep up all the amazing work, this place is so necessary and needed in my life and I know I'm far from alone in that opinion Be well, be strong, be brave, those of us who been here will stay here
I'm not sure a website is worth it. I honestly have trouble keeping up with just he content on Youtube, so I probably wouldn't really use the website.
Wish I'd have the time to chase up such a website and habitually read posts on there, but I've gotten busy as hell and am just inadvertently skipping content left and right as it is. Do what you gotta do, but moreover, do what you guys wanna do! Just keep being transparent and covering games candidly, and I'm not planning on taking my support away <3
I don't mind a website, I am unsure if I would make much use of it at the moment but I'd hope it help your columns get wider viewers. They can be really interesting at times and I would hope it gets some recognition it deserves.
A website sounds cool. An app that website would also be amazing. A group I really, Viva La Dirt League, did that, and it is honestly great just going directly to them, and supporting them there. Patreon is wonderful, of course, but the website option is definitely one I very much enjoy personally.
I'm just so happy yall are profitable, even though its thin. My favorite games media group ever.
I like a website, especially since one of my favorite things on the Second Wind Patreon is the columns. But I can already access those on the Patreon; maybe a website would be good for sharing non-paywalled articles to others?
Happy to see things are going well despite the market conditions. I would be supportive of a subscriber-focused website even if it's just a consolidated list of videos/articles with better organization than the terrible Patreon UI. I've managed a couple of WordPress sites and can vouch that a simple setup takes relatively low effort to maintain once built.
It would be original columns if we do it. From various writers even outside of Second Wind.
Would be very interested in a website for sure since youtube has been doing a terrible job with recommending you guys and patreons browsing layout leaves much to be desired. Having a website would make it nice and tidy to find all your guy's stuff without tripping over two questional recommendation layouts. Also glad to see Second Wind is still floating well! Hype to see what shenanigans you guys create with the animation style in other video formats!
While I'm a strong believer in owning your own web presence, I worry about the rapidly growing expense of constant AI scraping that has driven up hosting costs around the web. Make sure you're protected by affordable CDN/DDoS-defense solutions. It's a jungle out there.
Would you consider publishing Post-Ramblo as members-only on YouTube? The Patreon player is terrible and doesn't work in the background on my phone, which is where I listen to 98% of the podcasts I like.
You should already be able to get it via the Patreon RSS feed and play it in your own podcast setup.
As representative of the Darren Mooney Gang Im so happy the Backdrop is doing well
Personally, I don't really visit gaming sites for news or content anymore, and I'm not sure what would make me want to start. The biggest thing for me would be offering something genuinely different from what you're already doing. If it's just the same information you share through your current channels, or content that makes me think, "Why didn't they just put this on Patreon or YouTube?", I probably wouldn't have much interest in visiting a separate website. That said, I'm not sure how viable this idea is, but one thing a dedicated website could be useful for is making older content easier to find and navigate than the current search and organizational tools on Patreon and YouTube allow. Also, as a TTRPG guy, I'd love to see Jack or Jesse create monsters, encounters, or other resources that people could use in their own games. Even just making the stats and lore for AiN characters and monsters available for people to incorporate into their own campaigns would be cool. A website could be a great home for that kind of stuff, since it's something people might want to reference repeatedly rather than just watch or read once.
A big thing I (but maybe not many other people) would look for from a website is an RSS feed. It's how I subscribe to everything except Patreon (even Youtube has RSS feeds for channels if you know how to get them).
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I'd support a website component for SecondWindGroup
As for a website, i kinda like having all of the written columns consolidated on patreon. So while i am not opposed to it, i would probably continue to read written contributions here (especially cuz patreon posts go straight to my email, which makes my life convenient)
Been a fan for a long time. It feels weird to see the old Escapist videos you guys did and dislike them cause of everything. The thing that I love about you guys is how honest you are about your opinions. Instead of following or riding the hype, you guys being professionals calling it out for what it is.
Increased my Membership from $10 to $25. No personal interest or time to enjoy a website unfortunately, but the current on-the-go, digestible content works for me! The podcasts and video essays have kept me sane and tethered to reality while navigating the daily grind of working parenthood. I appreciate you all and the work you do!
I'm a little torn on the website idea. I've thought in the past, when trying to pitch you guys to friends looking for good games media, that it would be convenient to have somewhere outside Patreon or Youtube to direct them. On the other hand, I'd guess I engage with you all probably 85% on Patreon and 15% on YouTube, the latter of which mostly because I'm watching AiN or some other long form on a TV while working out. I don't see myself using the website all that much.
I enjoyed reading the columns on the old Escapist website back when you all were still there. Would definitely be open to that.
Can’t say I’d be too fussed about a website. I could see it as a way to maybe pull in new people but if it’s just going to be the normal content anyway, then while it could be nice to not have to fight Patreon’s mobile app it’s probably a big expense?
On the website front, Im not sure if Id ever use it to be honest. I love you guys, but I do see you as a Youtube channel first and foremost. If you want to put time and energy into a website thats your choice, but unless it really brings something special to the table it might be a lot of energy for not much return? Just my 2 cents, perhaps others will see it differently? Keep going, you're doing great!
Just increased my membership from $5 to $10. Because I want you to survive and you are absolutely worth that much per month.
I mean, given what's happened to The Escapist, and the corporate oversight at sites like Kotaku and Polygon, I think if SecondWind had a website component to it that could fill a whole we're all feeling. But it would need to be something other than just a content machine in order to really stand out. As for other ventures, while the collab with Red Dragon Inn had it's issues (that was handled very well actually) it was a crazy good way to bash different communities together that never knew the other existed. I'd love for something creative like that again. Especially in the Boardgame collab space. As always though, continue to kickass and be awesome, and keep on keeping on!
Keep up the great work, and I would love a website.
Looking forward to what you're cooking. My time in the day is sadly very limited, but I always take the time for ramblomatic, unpacked and especially the backdrop. Also been enjoying the podcasts every now and then. And even if a lot of stuff isn't for me, I've been here for so long I ain't going anywhere anytime soon. :3
Glad everything is looking good! I wouldn't mind a website as long as it's mobile friendly
Same
The problem with a website is content turnover. Even really big established ones like screenrant are struggling so much with content that their front page frequently runs "incase you missed it" articles from years ago. Keeping your content less frequent but higher quality is more important for my money (literally.... 😂)
Yea we wouldn't do a 24/7 website. It'd be original content only if we do it, and only focused on paid subs. Not mass traffic approach.
I'd support the website. Certainly plenty of writers out there looking for freelance work. And it'd be nice to have a place that I imagine would have a commitment to 'No AI'.
Keep up the fantastic work guys 👏