ProvingGrounds.TV is a grassroots esports media outlet focused on unique content, storytelling and journalist development.A lot of outlets are shutting down, and that sucks. There's a whole mess of reasons why that's happening – high overheads, adblock, et al.The big few that are left are all focused on staying profitable and not spending where they don't have to. This means no freelancer budget, which means that if you're not already connected with them, you have nowhere to get experience or learn the craft. I've seen what happens if you halt the flow of newcomers to anything. In 2-3 years, the big names will move on, and there won't be anyone to replace them. Entire scenes have died out because of it and it's tragic to watch. So an opportunity presents itself – we have a bunch of esports journalists with lots of experience who need somewhere to publish, and lots of bright new faces who want to learn but have nowhere to do it.Enter the dragon.We pay everyone for their work – not much, but what we can afford, funded entirely out of my pocket, and a few generous friends as a way to personally invest in esports. I was already loaning money to esports journos to help them get to events, buying them equipment. Some of the outlets that are no longer with us would take their sweet time paying so I'd end up paying them as well. And I'd help them fine tune their content before it went out. I realized I was already performing 90% of the function of an outlet without the actual act of hitting publish.We have no office, no administrative staff. Because we have no overheads, the cost of paying the writers is all that has to come out. But a lot of the state of esports journalism now is the way it is because the few that are left can only really afford to go after the big traffic stories – it matters to them if they don't get the traffic they need. We don't, so it frees us up to cover more interesting things, to take chances on new people, to tell the kind of stories that actually humanize players to their audience.There are so many lessons that actual media specialists have learnt from the regular environment that can be applied to a green field. It's not something that's going to make anyone rich any time soon, but it is a way for freelancers to get experience, get trained by people who know what they're doing, contribute to the industry, and perhaps show the fans something they've never seen before.But we're going to need your help. But how can you, an esports fan, help? Plenty of ways, actually. Your contributions go straight to paying writers to cover events and towards better equipment, all to make better content for you, the viewer.Join the discord: https://discord.gg/0lyWFYr5YTJGafz7 Or perhaps you'd like to become a journalist? Enquire within! If you've got the drive, we'll teach you the ropes and give you a place to publish.We don't succeed unless we all succeed. So come succeed with us.