*The host fund is closed as of Friday, 4/24. Thank you to everyone who contributed – we reached our goal and were able to support hundreds of hosts. As we now shift our focus to virtual trivia and getting hosts back on payroll, we hope you’ll #supportatriviahost by joining us for a game. For more information, please go to sporcle.com/virtual!*
One of Sporcle’s core values is truth. As a trivia company, this usually means doing the utmost to ensure the facts we present are accurate – researching questions, triple-checking typos, quickly updating quizzes as things change, and so on.
Right now, truth looks a little different for us. We want to be honest with you about the situation here at Sporcle Live during the COVID-19 pandemic, not to add negativity to the world, but to live up to this core value and to ask for help in finding human-forward solutions.
In March 2020, we had to shutter (for the time being) our Sporcle Live, Stump! Trivia, OpinioNation, and themed trivia events. That means hundreds of games each week stopped running, along with hundreds of hosts out of a job. We cancelled TriviaCon. We furloughed and laid off some portion of our staff. On the other sides of the business, we drastically reduced operations at Haymaker (our bar in Ann Arbor) to be take-out only and ad rates on our website have plummeted.
Despite all of this, we are more fortunate than many businesses out there. We are still up and running with a website and virtual trivia, and have every reason to believe we can weather this storm; many other small businesses are not so lucky. Our hearts ache for all of the good people who are affected by this pandemic and the resulting financial crisis – especially the bars, restaurants, and service industry folks who we have partnered with for more than 10 years. Margins are narrow in both of our businesses, so we understand how hard it is to get by in times like these.
The response of the trivia community has been overwhelming. Our immense gratitude goes out to everyone who contributed to our host fund (which is now closed), played a free or paid trivia game, hit Like or Subscribe on social media, or otherwise spent your time and money supporting the trivia business.
If you’re wondering how you can help Sporcle and its employees during this time, here is what we recommend:
1. Sign up to play virtual trivia. Join in on an all-topic game in the Sporcle Live, Stump!, or OpinioNation format – or all three! Or play a theme game all about the topics you know and love – science, your favorite TV show, geography, movies, music, and the best pop-culture phenomenons. If you want your own private trivia party, we can do that too!
2. Sign up for Sporcle Orange! This is the best way to help the sporcle.com website right now. Orange is the best online experience we can offer you and our memberships reduce our dependence on ads. The more people that sign up for Orange, the more ads we can remove from the site!
3. Download and play Sporcle Party. It’s free, a ton of fun, and a great way to connect with friends and family.
4. Play quizzes on sporcle.com! As tough as all this as been, it has been immensely gratifying to see the high traffic numbers and engagement from the Sporcle community. (We recently had our first 2 MILLION quiz-play day! And we continue to shatter all other play records that have stood for years.)
Thank you in advance, and Sporcle on!
