Thanks to Pat Coyle over at Sports Marketing 2.0 we have learned that Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures has opened up. Their catch phrase is “We identify next-generation sports-related companies involved in the media, entertainment and technology sectors.” The firm is led by:

Bryant Mcbride: He advised Sports Technologies, Inc. (STI) from its initial capital raise to the sale of its flagship property, FanNation, to Sports Illustrated/Time Warner. In addition to purchasing 100% of FanNation, Time Warner purchased a minority stake in STI. In 2005, he sponsored an investment in Football Scouts, Inc. and spearheaded the sale of that company to ESPN 14 months later, which generated a significant return to investors.

Steve Solomon: Since 2001, Steve has developed a leading advisory and consulting business, SJS Sports. Steve is recognized as a leader in the sports and broadcast industries with a deep understanding of the convergence of the digital/broadcast worlds and its effect on sports content and sports properties. Clients of SJS have included Major League Soccer, National Hockey League, Sports Illustrated, Octagon Worldwide, Tickets.com, Stats, Inc., Buffalo Sabres, NY Road Runners, Southeastern Conference, New York Red Bulls and Little League International, among others.

Paul Levy: Prior to Accrue, Paul was a Vice President with Main Street Resources, a private equity firm with $100 million under management focusing on both growth capital investments and buyouts in the lower middle market. Prior to Main Street, Paul was co-founder and CEO of Live Audience Business Solutions (LABS), a ticketing technology company focused on the Live Entertainment and Sports vertical that he sold to SmartDM, a Nashville-based CRM company in 2004.

Its great to see a venture firm started just to focus on the sports industry. We are sure any of our readers would love to work with an organization like this to develop a great sports company. If you have a good business plan, they are accepting them here: http://www.accruesev.com/contact.html

Website: YouCastr

Interview With: Ariel Diaz

Is their more then one founder? If so, who are they?

Yes, there are 4 co-founders, and currently a total of 5 people on the team. Ariel Diaz, Co-Founder and CEO. Jeff Hebert, Co-Founder and COO. Matt Hodgson, Co-Founder and CTO. Brad Johnson, Co-Founder and CSO. Colin Ulen, Chief Architect.

What are your founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

We have a very strong team with a diverse skill set and a strong work ethic. Matt leads the development, and has done a brilliant job building our website from scratch over the past 9 months. Jeff manages the product roadmap and user experience, combining his programming skills to help on development and a good eye for usability. Colin has experience in everything from production level web services to low-level electronic device programming and embedded systems design, and is creating the underlying framework to ensure YouCastr’s scalability. Brad has over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurial settings within large companies, including starting a few divisions internationally. Prior to YouCastr, he founded Intrepid Learning Solutions, the foremost provider of consulting, outsourcing and research training services. I have worked as a Program Manager in the Automotive Industry, including internationally, and most recently as a Management consultant for a boutique strategic consulting firm in Boston. Brad has an MBA from Darden, and the rest of us have Masters in Engineering Management from the Thayer School of Engineering and the Tuck Business School (graduate schools at Dartmouth). Colin and Matt studied electrical engineering, and Jeff and I studied mechanical engineering during our undergraduate years.

You can find out more about the team at www.youcastr.com/info/team

What does your website do?

YouCastr is creating a “virtual sports bar”, where fans interact with each other before, during and after a game, making the experience of following their favorite sports more fun and social. YouCastr makes this possible by enabling fans to broadcast their own live audio commentary, chat with other fans in real time, and create archived sports shows about their favorite teams, whether it’s a European Soccer team, or their high school basketball team. Everybody loves being at the game or watching it with friends at home or at a bar, but a lot of times, those aren’t viable options. YouCastr wants to bridge the gap between being there and watching alone on TV. It’s a little like BuddyTV for sports.

Are you worried about any legal ramifications from live broadcasts?

YouCastr allows users to create shows about their favorite team or topic, broadcast live events for high-schools and club sports, and provided additional commentary for televised events. We often get the question if there are legal issues with professional leagues. We do not believe so. We view providing additional commentary for televised sporting events that may include professional teams that is like watching and listening to a televised game with your friends at a sports bar and chatting about it –however, YouCastr has created a “virtual sports bar” where friends can talk and interact about the game they are all watching and listening on television. Rather than talking with a friend over the phone while watching a game, you communicate through the internet.

What is your favorite part about YouCastr?

It makes it much more fun to watch a game when you can share it with other fans and friends.

Does YouCastr have an option to embed the broadcast on another websites?

Yes, YouCastr members can share their content in a widget. The widget can be placed on their blog, or on a series of social networks. We are constantly looking at ways to make it easier for users to promote and distribute their content, and will be looking to expand our options in this area.

How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use?

We are generating revenue through a mix of display ads, audio / video ads, premium subscriptions, and professional distribution packages. For our display ads, we are using a series of ad networks, so we can get the best rates. We are using Right Media to manage the different ad networks, ad well as the ads we broker ourselves. Right Media makes it really easy to manage this.

How have your marketed your site?

So far we have done very little marketing. We rely on a lot of word of mouth growth, and are now beginning to support this with some press activities such as blogs and traditional media. As we move forward, we will be using a mix of online and offline marketing. The online marketing is very common in this space, and includes advertising on Google and Facebook, SEO, and other partnerships. The offline marketing efforts are often overlooked by internet startups, but since we see sports fans and athletes with very active offline lives, we want to make sure we reach out to them there as well.

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

We have been self-funded so far, and just closed an initial angel round which will enable us to more aggressively market the site and build additional features.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We have built a custom website on top of a lot of proven technologies that are used extensively in the marketplace today. The site is built on Ruby on Rails, and uses Flash to stream our live and archived content. We are using a series of back end providers to provide a flexible and scalable architecture.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

New technologies such as live video from mobile devices, increasing convergence of Internet and Television, improved real time interactivity and an ability to broadcast an infinite number of channels will change the way we follow traditional sports, as well as open up a whole new world of sports that was not attainable with the limited distribution capability of yesterday’s technology.

STN’s Take:

YouCastr is a great idea. We actually had thoughts about starting a website but our technological know how limits us to this blog. Whether you want to do a podcast about your favorite team or do a whole broadcast, YouCastr is a great option. The site looks great and the user interface is amazing. They do a very good job of organizing all the content under scheduled games and it will be interesting to see how the community grows.

If you are a person who already does a podcast, there is no reason not to upload it to this website. There are tons of passionate people already on the site. These are the people you want to get your Podcast in front of. For the people who are interested in the sportscasting business you can use this site to see what people think about you.

Take us through your time line of early Mister Irrelevant, AOL, the relaunch of Mister Irrelevant, The Blog Show, and finally Yahoo:

At the time I started Mr. Irrelevant (March ‘04), I was a Community Manager for AOL Sports and a bunch of other AOL verticals, as they were called: Games, News, Personal Finances, Autos, etc. Mr. Irrelevant beget Pigskins Bloggers which beget Sports Bloggers Live which beget FanHouse. I think it was FanHouse that ultimately caught the attention of Yahoo! Sports, and I was hired there in October. Somewhere along the line, we started doing Blog Show on Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic as well, probably due to my experience hosting Sports Bloggers Live and love affair with Dan Steinberg.

What is your favorite part about being a blogger and a blog editor?

I love sports, and I love media. Always have, always will. But the part about working in a medium that’s new and emerging and uncertain makes it all the better. And I really love the instant gratification. I’m kind of addled by it, actually.

Did you know you always wanted to write about sports?

Yeah, I think so, though I’ve never been particularly good at it. I just like being involved with sports. Playing them. Watching them. Going to games. Collecting stuff. Talking about them. Writing about them. And so on. Sports, generally speaking, have been my life pursuit.

What was it like to work for AOL? Were you pretty much on your own on? Was it easy to recruit bloggers for the Fanhouse? How were they paid?

Yeah, I had a lot of autonomy and was granted the approval to go my own way. I’ll always be thankful for that. As far as recruiting bloggers … it was kind of a mixed bag. Some bloggers were amenable to what generally equated to being paid side-gig money for their work. And others just didn’t have the time or inclination for that. Overall, I was grateful for and proud of the quality of the writers under that roof.

How long did it take Yahoo to recruit you?

Given what Yahoo! Sports has accomplished and the opportunity that was on the table … not very long.

Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang, seems to be very bullish on the future of Yahoo Sports and we assume you will be a big part of that. Have you gotten a chance to meet him yet or at least talk to him on the phone or email?

I have not, but, uh, I’d imagine he’s been a bit busy lately what with all this Microsoft business.

Not much has come about with you moving over to Yahoo yet. You must be working on a big project. Can you elaborate on it at all?

We’ve actually been doing things, I swear. In simple terms, Yahoo! Sports is monkeying the Gawker Media approach and applying it to sports, with each sport having its own blog and each blog having its own editor and various contributors. The goal being that we establish the Deadspin of the NFL, the Deadspin of the NHL, the Deadspin of MMA, etc., and offer them up not just to the web at-large, but to the 20 million people already using Yahoo! Sports every month. That said, the content won’t necessarily be Deadspin or Gawker-esque, it’s just that the setup will be, and, eventually, all sites merge into one to form the YSB (extremely creative working title; stands for Yahoo! Sports Blog).

There’s more to The Plan than that, and there’s a lot happening behind the scenes and on the periphery to bring it all back home, but here’s what Yahoo already has front-and-center for mass consumption:

Ball Don’t Lie (NBA blog edited by J.E. Skeets): http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/nba_experts

Shutdown Corner (NFL blog edited by MJD): http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/nfl_experts

Big League Stew (MLB blog edited by Kevin Kaduk): http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/mlb_experts

What are some of your favorite blogs right now? What is one new blog that has caught your eye as up and coming?

My bloglines are always open: http://www.bloglines.com/public/jamiemottram

As a D.C. sports fan, my No. 1 must-read is probably the D.C. Sports Bog. No. 2 would be anything my brother writes on Mr. Irrelevant. Another couple that are a bit under-the-radar: Capitol Punishment and Chris’ Sports Blog, both of which have been around but seem a bit under-read. Those guys can really write.

Any advice for a young blogger looking to move up the ladder and work for an sports media organization someday?

Get yourself connected, and treat every post like a tryout.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports on the internet?

Sure, it’s moving online. All of it.

STN’s Take:

Jamie is living proof that working hard and networking can get you to the top of the blog world pretty quickly. He has recruited some quality bloggers and they have started 3 new blogs. We liked what we were reading over there but at this point we find it hard to believe that Yahoo can justify paying Jamie, blog editors for each site, and contributors in the long run with sport general blogs. The Gawker Media approach works because each website creates its own community and their blogs can really post whatever they want. Yahoo will be much more strict in what they allow on their blogs. Could you imagine seeing a Chris Berman Video posted on Yahoo, we couldn’t. Jamie says they have more in the works so hopefully he has some tricks up his sleeve in the future. Maybe he can figure out a way to do something different that no one has seen so far in blogging world on a major website.

Website: Bleacher Report

Interview With: Dave Nemetz

How many founders does Bleacher Report have and what are their names?

Bleacher Report was founded by four diehard sports fans – Bryan Goldberg, Zander Freund, Dave Finocchio and me.

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

We’re four young guys who grew up in Silicon Valley and started Bleacher Report because we’re all sports culture junkies. We would commiserate about how mainstream sports media didn’t have the range or depth of coverage we were looking for and we knew that other diehard fans must be experiencing the same thing. As we scoured the Web for information about our favorite teams, we realized that some of the most insightful writing was coming from fans who know their teams best.

What does your website do?

We’re a community-driven sports network, providing all sports fans one place to create, critique and read compelling coverage on their favorite college and pro teams. Bleacher Report is built on an open, collaborative platform with a peer-editing system that ensures high quality fan-generated coverage, and a community driven by a reputation system that rewards the best contributors with better exposure, inside access, and other perks. We have a kind of “sports bar meets the press box” feel, and feature a lot of great content on a wide variety of topics.

When did you launch?

The site launched in beta in September 2007. It’s been pretty amazing to see the response from the fan community. In a few months, our site traffic has more than tripled. In January, we had 400,000 unique visitors and over 2,000 articles published. The official launch was February 19, 2008.

How have you built your community?

In the first few months, we aggressively targeted independent sport bloggers to invite them to joint the community. We knew that Bleacher Report offered them something compelling – a powerful syndication tool giving access to hundreds of thousands of readers. Bloggers can add their URL to their Bleacher Report profile and their blog posts are instantly published for the built-in readership at our site. We’ve also built a strong base through apps and partnerships on Facebook, as well as by reaching out to college newspaper writers and journalism students. And a large part of our growth has been organic. People are finding the great analysis at our site and passing it along.

The great thing about our community is that it’s addictively engaging. We try to do everything we can to put the writers first, since they make the site what it is. The site as a whole is infused with a spirit of competitive camaraderie that really keeps members engaged. Zander Freund, our Community Director, has done a great job of empowering top members to become Community Leaders and take an active role in shaping the Bleacher Report experience.

What types of marketing do you utilize?

We’re currently focused on developing cross-promotion partnerships with various properties to distribute Bleacher Report content around the web. We also have all the standard viral marketing like social media sharing and widgets.

In reality though, our greatest marketing tool is our content. We’re currently turning out close to 100 quality, edited editorials on a daily basis, and that number is growing rapidly. There are few sports media outlets either on the web or in print that could come close to our level of original editorial content, and it’s that content that has been the most means tool for marketing the site.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

Our business model is primarily ad-based, although we are exploring other streams. We primarily sell our own ads with an emphasis on integrated sponsorships and promotions, but we also utilize a variety of ad networks.

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

We just announced a Series A funding led by Hillsven Capital, a partnership of Boris Putanec and Bobby Lent, two former co-founders of Ariba, Inc (NASDAQ: ARBA), in addition to angel investors including several long-time Silicon Valley executives as well as College Humor and Vimeo founder Jakob Lodwick.

Are you looking for more funding?

Our current capitalization arms us with what we need to continue to grow the site and improve the features and user experience, which is what we are wholly focused on right now.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

My favorite thing about the site is the great content from the Bleacher Report writers. I spend a lot of time reading through the articles and I always find something interesting to pass along to my friends. A cool thing we’ve created for the writers is a Play-by-Play activity log that lets them see exactly how people are reacting to their articles. It shows the writer any comments that are posted on their articles, replies to these comments, new edits to their work from others in the community and any “Fans” that have picked them as a favorite writer.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Bleacher Report is built on a custom platform intended to cater directly to sports fans. We built the site in Ruby on Rails because of the rapid development time it allows for, and we have a five-person development team constantly working on improving the site. Throughout our development, we’ve taken pains to be a sports site first with fans in mind, not just an excuse to turn out the same Web 2.0 concepts with a sports twist. We like to say that we’re a Web 2.0 site for sports fans, not just a sports site for Web 2.0 fans.

You were just written up on TechCrunch, how many visitors did they bring to your site for the day?

Not surprisingly (at least to us), the traffic that TechCrunch sent was in the low thousands. Of course, it’s not about the visitors but the caliber of visitors and the brand awareness, and the TC writeup certainly gets high marks in both of those departments.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I think the trend we’re seeing a lot of categories and not just in sports is a redefinition of the term “expert”. It used to be that those regarded as sports experts either had to have a job at a national network or major magazine or newspaper, or they had to have played or coached at a high level. But technology has helped to level the playing field and help define a new category of expert—the fan who eats, sleeps, and breathes the game and thus knows their teams best. There’s lots of breadth to the term ‘sports expert’ and Bleacher Report is seeking to enable the people who have achieved that status but haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve

STN’s Take:

Dave and his buddies have a great thing going over at the Bleacher Report. Looks like they have some great Silicon Valley connections and a great management team. We really like what they are doing and 400,000 unique visitors in January is a huge number. They have done a great job blending the blog and social network aspect. When it comes to sports social networks, we believe the blog should be the focal point not the person’s individual page. We like that when we are logged into the front page it shows all our stats. It gives a personal feel but you still get the front page news as well.

We do have one suggestion though. For people that want to import their blogs, they should give two options instead of just one. Right now they ask you to paste code on your site and import your full blog. For someone like me I want the readers coming to my website so I would like to see an option to just put in an RSS feed.

The future of the Bleacher Report really intrigues us. Rarely do you see a website like this backed with venture capital. With the fact that they are backed by angel investors, venture capital, and four founders I really have a hard time seeing this website actually paying off for all these people. They won’t make enough money selling banner advertisements and working with ad networks. The only way they can make it is by selling large sponsorships to large brands. We hope they have a ton of top level ad sales experience or they may need to hire someone that does.

Website: The Legend of Cecilio Guante

When did you start your blog?

July 2007

What made you start it?

I work in the communications business and have always had a passion for writing…as well as sports. Creative writing isn’t something I get to engage in every day anymore (with the day job), so The Legend of Cecilio Guante provided that outlet. Plus, I feel like there aren’t as many 30-somethings musing about sports and paying homage to some of the players, traditions and moments of decades past.

What is your background?

High school athlete. Attended Cornell University and currently work in communications. My early career involved supporting major marketing and public relations efforts for consumer technology and electronics companies. Today, I am lucky enough to work for clients in the sports business.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career? What is your goal with this blog?

Blogging for me is a creative outlet. Driving traffic and revenue is icing on the cake. It would be great if my blog became a regular read for a few thousand folks every day.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map?

I have a background in publicity, so I think just knowing how to pitch a story helped. But an early ESPN link by Rob Neyer and a few Hot Clicks shout-outs have definitely helped us finally get a good base of a few hundred daily visitors. You have to keep it all in perspective and keep grinding it out, though. I think as soon as you stop working hard at it, the readers will disappear. I keep acting like I did those first few months when 50 visitors in a day was a dream (and 25 of those were probably me). Sites like Yardbarker and Ballhype have been great as well…

What type of blogging software do you use?

Blogger.

What ad network(s) do you use?

I have Google Ads, Adify (via Yardbarker Network) and Shareasale affiliate program.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Currently, not a whole lot. But we’re working on that…

If you could get something for free to help you out with your blog, what would it be? (Ex: design, marketing, ad optimization, etc)

Probably ad optimization and occasional design refreshes.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

My favorites are a moving target, but I like those that seem to combine a good knowledge of sports, original ideas and creativity…i enjoy Kissing Suzy Kolber, Can’t Stop the Bleeding, Bugs & Cranks, Signal 2 Noise, SportsByBrooks, Every Day Should be Saturday and folks like Deadspin and the Big Lead keep me informed on what’s going on…it’s amazing what they’re able to bring to the masses so quickly and timely.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports on the internet?

The name Cecilio Guante will live on forever.

STN’s Take:

We are really happy we found out about The Legend of Cecilio Guante. We were just perusing the blog and we found ourselves deep in the archives reading past posts. We actually agree a lot with what the blog has to say and really dig the header image. The Legend of Cecilio Guante does a great job of finding some interesting stuff like the fact that a Congressman from Pennsylvania voted against a resolution to congratulate the New York Giants. He was the only one out of 413 people.

We do have some suggestions. The first would be to add some ads on top of his posts and on the bottom (before the comments). The second would be to switch to a two column sidebar like this blog has so he can show ads and his links. Right now the sidebar basically just looks like an ad and I can pretty much see people ignoring it completely.

Website: KO Fantasy Boxing

Interview With: Alex Pierpaoli

What is your background?

I worked for about seven years in customer service and I have always wanted to do something that involved writing. i have been a boxing fan for decades so the fusion of internet, writing and boxing seemed like a comfortable fit..

What is the story behind starting KO Fantasy Boxing?

It was purchased as a partnership at first back in 2005 and then in June of 2006 it became a solo operation. The idea was to offer the fantasy game and to also offer some press releases and boxing news.

What does your website do?

KOFantasyBoxing allows visitors to create and monitor their own virtual boxing gyms by picking up professional boxers before big fights and then scoring points for their gyms when their fighters win or lose in the ring. Unlike football or baseball where a myriad of statistics are tracked KOFantasyBoxing tries to be as realistic as possible with the statistics available to fight fans. When fighters are kayoed or injured they go on a disabled list due to the mandatory suspension period approved by the association of boxing commissions. Kayoed or injured fighters are then able to be swapped at no charge. Prizes are awarded on a monthly basis to the top point scoring gyms and there is a cash prize at the end of each fantasy league as well.

When did you launch?

Officially launched as Webhead Entertainment, LLC on 6/6/06 which is hopefully not as demonic a date as it might look.

How do you plan on building your community?

satisfied customers, enthusiastic visitors, and t-shirt giveaways at the boxing hall of fame weekend

What types of marketing do you utilize?

So far just google and yahoo and word of mouth at fights

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

Customers playing the game

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

self funded

Are you looking for more funding?

no

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The fight results page is pretty cool. I like seeing how extensive we are in covering so many fights that take place all over the world between known and unknown fighters. It has really been fun for me as a fan of the sport.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I see an all-steroid dog fighting league with pay-per-view reality show style coverage. There would be profiles of each dog, visits to their respective dawg pounds, etc. The program would be hosted by Cesar Milan and of course Jeff Probst.

STN’s Take:

KO Fantasy Boxing is a cool concept but the website needs a ton of work. For those of you that are boxing fans this is the ticket to really get into your sport. We really like that you get to manage your own gym. We think it may be a good idea to add MMA fighters as well and maybe do a rebrand called KO Figthers Fantasy or something like that. We think that boxing is kind of on a downturn and MMA is on a big upswing with many more passionate fans.

In regards to the website, we really don’t think its a good user experience. On the signup page it says you can pay by Paypal, credit card, cashiers check, or money orders. The only problem is that we can’t seem to find the Paypal link anywhere to sign up. When people find something cool, a website has to have the fastest way possible for them to sign up or you are just going to lose them. We think that Alex’s best shot to succeed is to find a good UI designer to help him redesign the site and ad MMA fighters. He has a good niche. He just needs to make it easier to use and attract more people.

Website: www.accnation.com

Interveiw with: Patrick Hite

When did you start ACC Nation?

Started in January 2005 as a local radio show and companion Web site. We moved to producing the show as a podcast a year later in January 2006. The current blog was launched in January 2007. My co-host of the show and co-writer on the blog was Chris Graham until this past September. He moved on to other projects and my current partner is Jim Quist (AKA The Evil Q)

What made you start it?

I’ve been a fan of the ACC (specifically the University of North Carolina) since I can remember. I have a journalism and radio background and was hosting a local-themed sports-talk show on a radio station in Staunton, Va., when ACC Nation was launched. Chris and I had known each other for several years and had always talked about doing a show together. When we started throwing around ideas, ACC Nation seemed a natural fit for both of us (Chris is a University of Virginia graduate). We convinced the station to let us do the show and the blog soon followed.

What is your background?

I worked in radio (a Top-40 as well as a Country music radio station) as both a disc jockey and news reporter during college. I then got into print journalism and have worked for several daily and weekly newspapers. Currently I am an editor with a publishing company (more money than newspapers). I am based in Charlottesville, Va.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career? What is your goal with this blog?

It’s a little of both, I guess, although it’s much more for fun at the moment. I love my full-time job, so there is no hurry for me to make blogging and podcasting a career.

We have had a few sponsorships for the podcast, but nothing significant. If I had more time to focus on getting sponsors, I’d certainly be interested, but between my family, my full-time job and providing content for ACCNation.com and the podcast, sponsors aren’t something I have much time to pursue. I’d also be interested in switching the blog to something besides Wordpress.com, but my technical abilities are limited and I don’t have time to research the process or money to pay someone else to do it.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map?

Probably getting credentials to cover the 2007 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament. Since we’re a podcast and blog and not mainstream media, I thought it was significant that the ACC credentialed us to cover the tournament. We had applied in 2005 and 2006 and were turned down. We’ve also just received credentials to cover this year’s ACC Tournament. We did live game blogs and other posts from the tournament last year as well as six podcasts in the four days of the tournament. We attracted a lot of new listeners and readers from that event.

We’ve also interviewed some big names on our podcast, including John Feinstein, Dick Vitale and Andy Katz as well as several ACC football and basketball coaches.

What type of blogging software do you use?

Wordpress.com

What ad network(s) do you use?

None

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Minimal.

What are some of your favorite blogs and what are some of your least favorite blogs?

Like a lot of others, I visit Awful Announcing and Deadspin several times a day, plus I try to check out DC Sports Bog as often as I can.

There are a lot of ACC sites I like, but I really admire Statefans Nation, the Duke Basketball Report and Eagle in Atlanta. I’d like to provide the kind of in-depth stories they write for their blogs. But again, time is an issue. Plus, they are able to focus on one school while we try to cover 12 schools. That sort of forces us to be a little more general in what we write.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports on the internet?

Coverage of sports will continue to grow on the Internet. There will always be bloggers out there satisfied to just write their opinions a few times a week for the world to see, but I think we’ll start seeing more and more breaking stories on blogs as well as in-depth pieces that, in the past, have been the territory of magazines like Sports Illustrated.

As more and more veteran journalists turn to blogs, I think we’ll see the quality of blogs get better (although there are plenty of quality blogs written by people without any formal journalism experience). I hope, over time, the hostility between mainstream media and bloggers fades away. There is plenty of room for both.

I find it interesting that bloggers complain about a lack of respect from mainstream media, when there seems to be a lack of respect from bloggers toward mainstream media as well. I respect both. Like anything, there are good examples and bad examples in both camps. Find what you enjoy and read it or watch it or listen to it. When you find something you don’t like, avoid it.

STN’s Take:

As one can tell Patrick is having a great time doing his podcast and blog. He is a very hard worker that puts a great deal of time into his website while also having a family and a full time job. If you are a fan of the ACC, his blog is a must read. He must have some great connections because his list of interviews are top notch. Nothing can beat Dick Vitale.

We do have some suggestions for Patrick. We would like to see links to his top podcasts like his one with Dick Vitale easily available. Patrick should keep in mind that most people are new to his site and he should make it as easy as possible to find his best content. Also, we would like to see the intro in his Podcasts shortened. It seemed like it was 2 minutes. If I wasn’t forcing myself to listen to it, I would of shut the podcast down. And last, we don’t think Patrick should be so quick to dismiss Wordpress. It can do many great things and we actually think his site looks great.

*Kissing Suzy Kolber is hosted at kissmesuzy.blogspot.com and Kissingsuzykolber.net. Most of their traffic goes to the blogspot address so we used that address for stats. The same is true for Awful Announcing.

We now have a new column and this column tracks Absolute Unique Visitors.  This is the number of new people that come to a given website in that month.  The black underlined numbers are real actual numbers and we give those numbers more weight.  That is why The Big Lead is ranked second instead of some of the other higher projected blogs.  The regular numbers are estimates we calculated based off of the Compete.com number and the actual unique numbers we do have.  For those of you that didn’t provide us with actual numbers hopefully you can provide those in the future.

After looking at the rankings a few things stick out to us.  The first is the Need 4 Sheed’s huge Absolute Unique Number.  They are bringing in a ton of traffic and Compete.com is way off on their number.  I have a feeling that this is because less tech inclined people that would use the Compete Toolbar tend not to be Need 4 Sheed Fans.  The second thing we noticed is Busted Coverage was able to keep their traffic around after the blogger tournament in December.  Great work Guys.  The last item we thought was interesting was Bar Stool Sports jumping from 48,381 Compete Uniques last month to 117,064 this month.  We’re not sure how that happened but they must be doing a quality job over there.

As always please inform us if you think you should be on the list.  For the bloggers on the list grab this badge, link to the post, and put it up on your site to show your readers where you stand:

Website: www.cobrabrigade.com

Interview With: Jack Cobra

When did you start Cobra Brigade?

I believe May 12, 2006 was our ‘official launch date’.

What made you start it?

I used to write at another site but left because of a disagreement. I asked a few of my friends (Buck Rampage, Cpt. Morgan and Bruce Paine) who know about certain sports than I do, to come along and help me out. They obliged and we were off and running.

I first started blogging because I would send out these mass emails to friends about the way the Cubs, Bulls and Indiana University were playing…..after awhile, and some good feedback, I figured I had enough to give my opinion to the masses.

The other guys on the site probably started writing because they were tired of me asking them to help out. They are full of information and we’re lucky they take the time out from their busy lives to write.

What is your background?

Um…I’ve always liked to read and write. Other than that, I don’t have any writing experience. Buck (engineer) and I (logistician) are government (civilian) employees. Cpt. Morgan is a Podiatrist in Rhode Island and ran the sports website at the college we attended. Bruce Paine is a stone mason with a History Degree from IU.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career? What is your goal with this blog?

We blog for fun. The goal of our blog is to make our readers think and keep them entertained. We don’t have any aspirations to do anything but that.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map?

I had a lot of readers come over from where I used to write, so that was helpful. I think the post that ‘put us on the map’ at Cobra Brigade was probably Paine’s eloquent posts on the IU football program and former IU Football Coach Terry Hoeppner. We provide quality content and that helps out just as much as one post ‘putting us on the map’. We’ve been lucky enough to have been ‘linked to’ by Deadspin enough that new and old readers know what we’re about at this point.

How does the Blog By Fans partnership work? If someone wanted to be apart of the network, what would they have to do?

Um…we all do ‘what we do’. There really aren’t any stipulations other than writing about sports and writing quality posts. If you want to be part of the network you can contact Brian at tryouts@blogsbyfans.com

What type of blogging software do you use?

Movable Type

What ad network(s) do you use?

You’d have to ask Brian, he takes care of all of that.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Not that much. Since we are all friends we’ve just ‘pooled’ the money and opened up an investing account. I’m not sure what we plan on doing with the small sum later, but maybe we’ll try to help out those less fortunate than us….or just spend it on beer.

If you could get something for free to help you out with your blog, what would it be? (Ex: design, marketing, ad optimization, etc)

I think if we could get an outside consultant to look at our writing and let us know what should be improved, that would be best.

What are some of your favorite sports blogs?

Favorites: Storming the Floor, YAYSports, Moderately Cerebral Bias, StopMikeLupica, Deadspin, The Sports Hernia, The Serious Tip, Epic Carnival and all of the BlogsByFans sites.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports on the internet?

Drug testing of all bloggers…..

STN’s Take:

We really like Jack’s passion for blogging. You can tell he enjoys the interaction and writing and that’s really all he needs in return. The Blog By Fans Network has attracted some great writers and they have a nice thing going there.

We see that he did a redesign from the time that we interviewed him and now and it looks great. This template could possibly start a new blogging trend at some point. We like that you can click on the different latest stories and the page doesn’t have to refresh. It is just as easy as scrolling down the page but looks better. We would like to see some better design then just the solid black background and the template could look even better.

Website: www.freethefan.com

Interview with: Dan Myers

How many founders does Free the Fan have and what are there names?

Founders: Dan Myers and Derek Tabacco

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

Dan Myers: Worked in television and media industry for the last 10 years. Myers has held roles in both marketing and programming for numerous television networks and studios including Starz Movie Channels, Disney, Warner Bros., HDNet, NBC Sports, SportsNet New York, MSG, and other various regional sports networks. Myers experience in Sports programming and Marketing along with recent work in New Media led him to develop a next generation social network for sports fans.

Derek Tabacco: At LocateStock.com, Tabacco has helped to create a two unique software platforms, The Matador and Equity Finance Exchange Trader. LocateStock.com is one of the world’s first electronic securities lending portals that modernizes and simplifies the Securities Finance Industry. Tabacco has used his technological resources and his love of sports to bring Free The Fan to life.

What does your website do?

FreeTheFan.com is a competitive social community for sports fans. We offer Quick Picks, intuitive fantasy games that eliminate time consuming drafts and trades by enabling users to compete on a level playing field. Free The Fan empowers fans to share their opinions on the hottest topics in sports with videos, blogs and debate topics. Fans compete for prizes by winning Quick Picks games or by scoring participation points in the community.

When did you launch?

March 2007

Has it been easy or hard to build your community?

Our community has been at times easy to build, however maintaining an active audience of users can be difficult. We have enhanced the user experience over time to grow with our audience and their needs. There are basically two types of users, passive and active. Your feature set has to appeal not only to those persons that will try out all the bells and whistles but also to those who just want to stand back and take it all in. Just because someone likes sports doesn’t mean that they will actively upload videos or post a rant about this weekend’s game. You have to find a group of users that will actively contribute to the community then the others will be enticed to drop in to see what’s going on.

What types of marketing do you do?

We create a 30 minute television program on SportsNet NY. In this weekly sports report we cover the greater NY area High School Sports scene, driving young sports fans to our community. We also do SEM through google and yahoo.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

Our advertising is through ValueClick and Google. We also sell sponsorships of our games and contests, such as with current prize partner, Overstock.com. We are actively building partnerships with other sports websites that would like to utilize our Quick Picks Fantasy platform.

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

Angel

Are you looking for more funding?

Yes, We would like to raise new capital to build out our core infrastructure, further develop our game applications and create partnerships with other sports portals and media companies.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

Quick Picks fantasy games were developed after we launched based upon a problem we wanted to solve in the space. We felt that many people lost interest in fantasy leagues when points got lopsided or injuries decimated teams, so we created a proprietary platform to provide a new form of fantasy gaming. This “social” component of Quick Picks allows users to interact with friends while competing for weekly prizes. It takes just 2:00 minutes to play, but choosing your team is a whole new challenge.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

The mobile space is still largely untapped. The Web 2.0 era has ushered in many new applications, features and communities however this has yet to truly be carried out across multiple devices. Wireless carriers are opening up for more expansion with mobile applications such as the upcoming developer’s kit for Iphone and the Google Android SDK. I think that the question for any technology company is how you can create unique applications that take advantage of the platforms that people use most frequently. I think you will see the simplicity of the web 2.0 user interface be carried out by savvy companies into the mobile and gaming space. We must deliver the experience when the users want it, where they want it. Applications must be tight, intuitive and fun. You are competing for attention with a myriad of other forms of entertainment and distractions.

STN’s Take:

While creating an account with Free the Fan we found the user interface to be very easy to use. We like how it was really simple to build out a profile by just clicking the boxes. The one thing they didn’t have when we set up was a tool that allowed them to invite all our contacts in our email address by typing in our username and password. We really think this is a must have for all social networks. If you get a person that signs up for Free the Fan and is really psyched about it, you need to give the person the tools to reach as many people at once.

The sports social network space is extraordinary crowded space at the moment. We have already covered 9 sports social networks on this site. Like I have said before when a social network is launched it needs a community to launch with it. Friends and family aren’t enough. We like that they are trying to involve the high school aspect as one can see by viewing this video: http://www.freethefan.com/contests. We think this is their best asset and they need to use it to their advantage. They need to market some type of contest and get the word out to the high school players. If they have the money, maybe paying the players a small amount of money to use the site for a month might be a good idea as well.