Interview With: Darrel Owenby

When did you start your blog?

We started our blog this past July, but SECRivals has ran a message board for five years.

What made you start it?

We all read a lot of sites, some we agreed with, some we didn’t. Basically, a couple of us decided that we could do the same thing, except better.

What is your background?

I have @ twelve years of blue collar work, ten years of sales experience, three years of training/development and have been online since 1996.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career?

Fun.

What is your goal with this blog?

Develop a solid base of regulars inside as well as outside of the SEC.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map? (if you bring in more the 5,000 uniques a month)

Creating an affiliation with MoonDog Sports really got us going. Our message board has over 1k members and we already had a decent amount of traffic, BUT the blog was put on the map with MoonDog’s help.

What type of blogging software do you use?

Wordpress

What ad network(s) do you use?

Adify through Yardbarker.com, Google adsense and Commission Junction.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Not a whole lot, like we said, it’s fun.

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

Wow, good question. Our biggest area would be marketing; we could always use extra traffic.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

MoonDog Sports, EDSBS, A Sea of Blue and Vanderbilt Sports Line.

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

We haven’t scratched the surface yet. A lot of people are screaming that blogging is dead, but video is only now being played with. Podcasts were huge a couple of years ago, but the next big thing will be for video podcasts by regular people. Imagine “Jake and Luther on Sports”.

Website: 

Name:  Evan Brunell

When did you launch MVN?

MVN was originally launched December 31, 2003. It was not put together as a company until March 2004, however.

What made you launch it?

MVN in it’s original form was simply a blog about the Red Sox and Pirates linked to each other. We had the idea to get someone covering every baseball team and link to each other under the same house with a similar design. It was a concept that we quite literally stumbled on to and have been concentrating on making it a business since.

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

The founder of the idea was myself and Frank Palmieri, a friend from Pittsburgh. The founders of the company were myself and Dave Cohen, a former partner who works for IBM. Cohen sold his share in the company last year to my father.

What is your background and qualifications?

I am currently finishing up a degree in journalism and a minor in business administration at Northeastern University. I have worked at the Red Sox Foundation, Northeastern Marketing and Communications, ESPN Radio Boston and currently am at The Patriot Ledger. I am curious about the advent of new media and am dedicated to making MVN the best independent sports media company it can be. MVN was a site that was originally designed as a hobby and has grown into much more.

What does your website do?

From MVN’s About Us page:

“MVN is an independent sports media company relying on the volunteered time of people to “blog,” or write on the internet, about their favorite sports team or any derivation thereof. MVN also has a podcast network, which can be thought of as blogging, except in voice form. MVN continues to aggressively explore what a sports blog network can do on the internet, and prides itself on being the first and largest sports blog network on the internet. With such a distinction comes awesome responsibility, and while other networks have sprung up, MVN continues to pave the way and will continue to pave the way during this exciting time in history, where “convergence journalism” is becoming the preferred media.”

Basically, we give a voice to bloggers to blog about their favorite team.

This summer, MVN.com will be re-launched in an effort to better serve the needs of sports fans. Focusing on producing a higher quantity and stronger quality of content in addition to implementing a more sophisticated publishing platform, the Most Valuable Network intends to set itself apart from other online destinations. Continuing to develop a strong sense of community between readers and writers is a top priority.

How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use?  Have you contacted advertisers directly instead of going with ad networks?

We primarily generate revenue through our ad network, Fantasy Sports Ventures which takes on a bit of a bigger role than a typical ad network. We are very pleased to be part of the FSV network. We also work with the smaller-market advertisers directly, such as ticket brokers, to place links on the pages.

How have your marketed your site?

Right now, since we are self-funded and in a family business, we do not have much capital and rely on word of mouth for marketing. We plan on changing that this coming year and getting MVN the traffic it truly deserves. Everyone who visits MVN always talks about how much they like MVN and what it offers; we just need to get more people to see it for themselves.

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

MVN is currently self-funded. My father invests for any overhead, but for the most part, MVN’s ad revenue currently covers all costs. Last year, we were able to turn a profit which will help as the new platform for MVN will be costly. We are exploring people investing into the company.

Are You currently looking for funding?

Yes, we are starting to look for additional ways to create revenue so we can pour it into the company to realize additional profit coming back. We are open to angel investments or venture capitalism.
What type(s) of technology do you use?

Our platform is currently Wordpress MU, and we also have RSS, podcast, video and other technology available.

What is your favorite feature on your website?

The fact that we bring local team coverage to a national scale. It’s what we’ve always built around and what we always will.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

Sports has exploded in popularity thanks to the Internet and technology. Now, not only is it easier to follow your favorite team, you can follow all teams and know anything you want. In addition, the technological advances (such as the yellow first down line) has made watching sports so much more fun as well. And the scary thing is that we’re still figuring out this technology gizmodo. Imagine what happens when we finally do.

www.bustedcoverage.com

Interview with: J Koot
When did you start Busted Coverage?

The site was originally started in July 2007 under the name Big Ten Tailgate but was changed to Busted Coverage in late November/ early December after Big Ten Conference lawyers advised me it was in my best interest. That situation taught me a valuable lesson: the Big Ten hates when your site ranks higher than it on Google.

Did the Big Ten shut you down because you talked about booze and women or just because you their name was in your domain?

A little of each. I don’t think they liked the entire premise. These conferences want to come across as holy but the schools do very little to stop the boozing and canoodling. They pretend to care, i.e. Wisconsin started giving Breathalyzer’s to underage students who had previous alcohol violations before entering football games.

It’s a smoke screen. Without the frat house atmosphere you’d see less attendance and we know where that leads.

Look at NASCAR. They took an event and turned it into Mardi Gras every Sunday afternoon. A huge segment of society wants that escape on a weekly basis. It’s a billion dollar business.

At the end of the day, the Big Ten wants to squash use of its name with such activities. But that doesn’t stop them from showing boozing on its Big Ten Network.

What made you start it?

There isn’t a great story behind the site. It was just a chance to talk sports and post stupid items of interest. Things started to evolve in September when I found the lack of interesting Big Ten sites. So much of the shit out there was game talk, game review, game discussion. If I wanted that I’d just watch the game at a sports bar with my buddies. There is so much more to the football scene. Once I went in the direction of debauchery and out of control fans, the site gained readership and a reputation.

Aspiring bloggers should follow this advice: Don’t think you are going to be the next Jimmy Cannon.

Be creative, timely and interesting. Controversial writing never hurt, either.

What is your background?

Traditional media. Print. Advertising. I’ve done just about everything there is in the newspaper world. Writing, pagination, design, production. Print will always be my love. I don’t subscribe to the notion that blogs will eventually rule the world. Blogs rip off the print industry every single day. Radio rips off the print industry every single day. Broadcast news rips off the print industry every single day.

I grew up with a newspaper being delivered to the house and feel its still the best source of portable news available.

Many bloggers feel its their duty to bash print. Take a look where the same blogger gets his information.

You did a tournament bracket for best sports blog of 2007, how much extra traffic did it bring you?

The sports blog tournament brought in terrific numbers. The blogging world embraced the concept and ran with it. Several blogs took it very seriously. I must say that Metsblog has a crazy following and a great product.

The blog tournament was derived from the lack of legit football in late December. I figured why not end the year with this idea of seeding blogs. It’s natural to see how you compare to other blogs. Connections made with some of the bigger blogs allowed me to spread the word quickly. Once word got out things fell into place.

What type of blogging software do you use?

Wordpress. Is there anything better? Simply a revolution in digital publishing.

What ad network(s) do you use?

Adsense and Adbrite. Ideally there would be more display advertising going on.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Not enough to give up a full-time job. But the opportunity is there to make dollars. That’s what makes the Internet so great. It’s impossible to buy a newspaper, but you can be a digital publisher in a matter of hours. Making money right now is secondary to building a great product that others think is interesting, funny and an escape from their regular lives.

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

There are so many guys producing great content. One site that holds my attention is TV Tan Line. It’s the next best thing to actually watching a football game. I never would have guessed posting screen shots would win me over.

I usually start my day with The Big Lead’s Daily Roundup. It’s a great place to find nuggets of information.

Blogs that attract my attention make a point and quickly. I’m not going to read a 1500-word report on why Pittsburgh should have gone for 2 in the 3rd quarter. Let’s not joke ourselves. We all watch SportsCenter. I already know what happened in the game. I want to know what it looked like outside the stadium before the game and afterwards when your buddy Tony was making out with the fat Cleveland chick.

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

Will Leitch will have a movie made about his life becoming the all-time most famous sports blogger? That’s bold, eh.

On a serious note, sports blogging is in its infancy. Where we go will be dictated by advertising dollars and how badly the major media companies want exposure to a younger audience.

STN’s Take:

With Joe’s writing style and his inclusion of skin you really can’t go wrong with reading Busted Coverage. It would be interesting to see how many other blogs have been threatened with a lawsuit like Big Ten Tailgate was. We are sure they can’t be the only one. For those of you that don’t know, Busted Coverage was actually apart of our Top 25 Sports Blogs for December. Based on Compete numbers they basically went from 7,000 uniques in November at Big Ten Tailgate to 25,000 in December at Busted Coverage. We believe they received that huge jump in traffic due to their top blogger bracket tournament. We are real interested to see if they can keep that traffic around for January.

In regards to our suggestions, please take off the full page Adbrite ads. They are very annoying. Those are the types of ads that drive people away from your site. Also, I am not sure why some Wordpress blogs do this but their pages are indexed by numbers and that can cost you in the traffic category. Google likes to read the page index first and if all they see is a number instead of the title of the article, your page may not get indexed correctly.