Website: www.hardballtimes.com 
Interview With: Dave Studeman
How many founders does Hardball Times have and what are there names?
THT was founded by Aaron Gleeman and Matthew Namee. I was brought in during the planning stages.
What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?
Aaron has had a baseball blog for many years, www.aarongleeman.com, that has been recognized as one of the best baseball blogs forever. Matthew was a research assistant to Bill James at the time we founded THT. I created the www.baseballgraphs.com site.
What does your website do?
We think of THT as an online baseball magazine. We have several articles a day, usually 1,000 words or more and edited by our editorial staff. We also have daily updated baseball statistics.
We’re not really a baseball news site. The goal of THT is expressed by our slogan “Baseball. Insight. Daily.” We try to present new insights for baseball fans, usually (but not always) based on current events.
We also have a baseball fantasy column, with content developed specifically for fantasy baseball players.
When did you launch?
March, 2004.
How have you built your community?
That’s hard to say. I guess it’s been word of mouth, primarily. Many bloggers have referred to our work over time, and we’ve received a lot of references from mainstream media, too. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve developed a reputation for quality work.
What types of marketing do you utilize?
Our most important marketing effort is the Hardball Times Baseball Annual, which has been published each of the last four years. We like to think that it harks back to the days of Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts. The THT Annual is sold on our site and in bookstores. The Annual has really helped get our name out there.
We have also started publishing an annual Season Preview, which contains statistical projections, team comments and fantasy baseball strategy.
Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?
We use Blogads and Google Ads, but most of our advertising is sold directly.
Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?
Self funded.
Are you looking for more funding?
Nope.
What is your favorite feature on your site?
We have developed a tremendous stable of writers over the years. I love reading all of their work, and I’m proud to be associated with them. Several of our writers (including one of our founders, Aaron Gleeman) have been hired by mainstream media outlets, and a couple of others have been hired by major league teams.
Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?
I think you’ll see tremendous use of the data being generated by MLB’s Pitch f/x, and the potential for synergy between mlb.com and the baseball blogging community is huge. I hope mlb.com remains as open as they are today.
STN’s Take:
For all you baseball junkies out there, Hardball Times is a must read. Their articles are definitely not for those of you that have ADD. You have to really love baseball to read all their information. One can tell that they have good writers by just reading their website, but one can also tell they have good writers by the way they have been able to build traffic over the years. We believe it is extremely hard nowadays to build a website following that is pumping out three 1000 word articles a day. With so much information available on the web, it is hard to dedicate that much time to one site.
We have a few suggestions and the first is to have a commenting system on their web pages. It is annoying that we have to go to BallHype to comment on an article. No one wants to go to another website to submit comments for an article. Maybe BallHype is paying them to do it but it just doesn’t seem worth it. It is much more beneficial to build that community of commenters on your website. They are basically handing over free page views and content to Ball Hype. The second would be to have a contextual ad at the end of each article. Seems like they are missing out on some money there.
