There are so many areas of concern through this crisis that it can be dizzying to see which one will come to the fore next. The public health is the first and foremost concern but we have to keep services running to make the period of dramatic behavioural change work.

Lidl and SuperValu have to keep the doors open, communications have to stay up primarily through the internet which has become as important as any utility, and we have to keep the lights on.

Add to that the role of the media, so often taken for granted but without whom we would be at the mercy of misinformation and the regular madness of rumour and social media.

Last night I became a member of The 42.ie It cost €5 a month and is something I should have done a long time ago given the habitual regularity with which it appears in my screentime results.

I’ve never ‘had’ to pay before because the model of advertising has been sufficient to keep it going, to keep the servers going the stories appearing and writers like Fintan O’Toole, Gavin Cooney, Adrian Russell, Emma Duffy and others in paid employment.

Yesterday came the news that advertising revenue had fallen off a cliff and that all those writers contracts were being changed from full to part-time.

My fiver a month will not make that much difference but collectively those who read and enjoy the content can make a difference. We have to at least try and do what we can.

The same pressures will come across all media. Our friends and colleagues at Pundit Arena, SportsJoe, and Balls.ie are newer to the world and may feel it hardest first.

But that contagion of reduced activity and reduced ‘necessity’ to spend on advertising is hurting all the way through RTÉ, Sky, The Irish Independent, the Examiner and the Irish Times.

It will be hurting at Off The Ball and TG4 and at the production companies like Nemeton, and photography agencies Inpho and Sportsfile who have played such a role in making sport into the wonderful, uplifting, sometimes irrelevant but always important animal that it is.

Sport for Business was born at a time of financial crisis back in 2011. I was told at the time that if we could survive those times that we would have the strength to thrive when things got better. As they inevitably do and those words of advice helped us through the early years.

Our model is based on membership rather than advertising and the breadth of great companies and organisations that have supported us down the years gives me confidence that we will survive this period and thrive again.

It has never been more important to have an independent media that can bring us all together.

That might be through broadcasting to us in TV, radio, online or print, or like we try to do, engaging with us all to make it seem like none of us is going through this alone.

It has also never been more important that we as individuals do our part to help keep that independent media alive.

If you can afford it, become a member of The42.ie or take out a subscription to your newspaper of choice. If you have not got one, go online and buy a TV License. If your membership of Sport for Business is up over the coming months work with us to find a way to maintain what we do, so that we can help to maintain everything that you do.

It’s not going to be easy but we will get through this.

Just like staying apart to flatten the curve being an individual choice, so too is coming together to help all of those that are part of our lives.

Contact us today quoting SUPPORT if you would like to discuss your membership of Sport for Business