Vox Media and SB Nation’s Secret Base Launches Subscription Product

Vox Media and SB Nation announced that Secret Base, its award-winning, critically-acclaimed YouTube channel, will be launching Top Secret Base, a new subscription product beginning Wednesday, May 1. Every month, subscribers to Top Secret Base will have access to exclusive content from the Secret Base team including monthly episodes of The Annex, the team’s first ever podcast, along with new series and episodes of fan favorite franchises, monthly newsletters, and articles.

In addition to The Annex, the first three months of Top Secret Base will feature the return of Pretty Good from Jon Bois, executive producer at Secret Base. Ranging from 15-minute to hour-long episodes, these true stories have included “The Dumbest Boy Alive,” “Baron Davis from 89 Feet,” and more. Subscribers will also receive early access to one new episode from the Secret Base YouTube channel ahead of its release. And lastly, video producer Alex Rubenstein’s Dorktown column will return.

“Pretty Good was my first-ever documentary series,” said Bois. “Episodes were about anything and everything, with the only rule being that it had to be a good story. Ever since its run ended back in 2017, people have asked if I will bring it back. I think they missed the amateurish editing and ear-splitting audio spikes. Unfortunately, the production quality is considerably higher this time around, but we think people will love it anyway.”

Launching through the creator company Patreon, the Top Secret Base subscription will have three different offering tiers, ranging from free to $10 a month. The free subscription offers fans a monthly newsletter that rounds up the latest videos available from Secret Base on their YouTube channel and their Patreon platform along with one piece of short form content. The $5 monthly subscription gives subscribers access to a weekly piece of content, from an episode of Pretty Good to a new episode of the Secret Base podcast, as well as items like an advanced screening of videos before they publish to YouTube or longform written Dorktown columns. The $10 monthly subscription includes those perks, plus new ways to interact with Secret Base creators. They can participate in the subscriber mailbag, a place for members to ask Secret Base creators questions, they can vote on future video topics, and they will also be included in a “special thanks”portion at the end of every YouTube video.

Will Buikema, executive producer of Secret Base added, “Secret Base turns four years old in August, which is roughly 45 in media years. Does that mean Top Secret Base is our mid-life crisis? Maybe. But more than that, it represents our ambitious nature and desire to give an audience something they want before they even expect it.”

“Patreon is influencing the future of fandom and we’re thrilled to be working with Secret Base to provide their fans exclusive first-access to their content,” said Rory Brown, Chief Brand Officer at Patreon.

Since Secret Base’s launch four years ago, the team of creative video storytellers has earned critical praise and industry recognition. As Indiewire noted, Secret Base “has reinvented the sports documentary for the digital age” resulting in multiple award wins and nominations from the New York Emmys, Digiday, Webbys, and more. In addition, last year The Atlantic named The History of the Minnesota Vikings a top 10 film and the New York Times called The History of the Atlanta Falcons “so special and refreshing: It’s a wild departure from the talking-heads literalism you’ll find elsewhere.” In a 2022 profile The New York Times called Bois “the poet laureate of sports statistics.”

Recent and notable premieres and franchises for Secret Base include The History of the Minnesota Vikings, How to Make a Basket: Kobe vs. Shaq, Chosen, Beef History, Prism, Rewinder, and more.

Subscribers can sign up for the Secret Base subscription product starting today at patreon.com/secretbase.

About Secret Base:

Secret Base is an SB Nation franchise that focuses on smart, captivating, entertaining stories that happen to be about sports, and finding unconventional ways to tell them. We take community very seriously, inviting our fans to come along with us as we go on various absurd journeys. We recognize that sports are silly, but it’s fun to take silly things seriously, and that’s exactly what we do. As such we fill a special place in sports media, tapping into a diverse and dedicated fan base across sports lovers and the people who “don’t like sports” alike.