beRecruited and STACK Media Reaching Targeted, Large Audiences

July's Comscore numbers for sports networks were released recently and STACK Media made it's first appearance on the chart with 3.5 million uniques in July and importantly is the #1 platform for "active young men (12-24)".

Why is this important? Because beRecruited is part of the STACK network and played a critical role in these numbers and demographic targeting (the 12-24 year old audience is clearly our sweet spot). From Circulation Management:

Key to that traffic spike is a content partnership with three properties: sports retailer Eastbay.com, Footlocker.com (Footlocker owns East Bay) and BeRecruited.com, an online recruiting tool for high school athletes. “We focused on executing against a distributed media strategy where we take our content and distribute it to partner sites. In exchange for distribution of the content we’re also selling all of the advertising inventory on those sites. The tagline ‘Content is king, but distribution brings the bling’ is definitely a motto here,” says Palazzo.

But before STACK could effectively enter into distribution partnerships, the company had to prove the worth of its content. “Our content is the glue that is making these partnerships function because it’s unique in the sports space. It’s not news coverage, it’s sports lifestyle and performance. They’re the who’s who and we’re the how-to. That differentiates us and gives us the ability to create these types of partnerships,” says Palazzo.

Despite the initial focus on the high school athlete, the company has found that sports training, especially when it’s presented by professional athletes, is appealing to a broader audience of 12-to-24 year olds. “We’re focused on a new market. Our competitors now are ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports, and AOL Sports and Fox Sports—people that are in the top five that blue chip marketers are using. We may not have 20 million uniques, but the uniques we have are definitely [the marketer’s] target.”

1. Yahoo Sports - 21,851,000 uniques 2. ESPN - 18,101,000 uniqueS 3. Fox Sports - 14,644,000 uniques 4. MLB.com - 12,778,000 uniques 5. AOL Sports - 11,631,000 unique s (doubled in a year - 6,858,000 in July 2007) 6. NFL Internet Group - 7,482,000 uniques 7. CBS Sports - 5,923,000 uniques 8. Sports Illustrated Sites - 4,656,000 uniques 9. WWE - 4,206,000 uniques 10. STACK Media - 3,580,000 uniques

From STACK:

STACK Media today announced its ranking as the #1 online property to reach the coveted active young male demographic--as measured by comScore Media Metrix. With over 3.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. during July 2008, STACK Media jumped ahead of NBA.com and Nascar.com to land as #10 on the prestigious comScore list of Top Sports Web Properties. In addition to mass reach, STACK Media now offers display and video brand advertisers the greatest efficiency against the highly desirable but elusive category of active young (12-to-24-year-old) males online.

Fantasy Football 2.0 Via My Blog - You In?

I've written a fair amount about sports and the web... and some of my most active feedback / commenting has come through those posts. So I'd like to try something: organizing a fantasy football league through this blog and its readers. The rules will be relatively straight forward

- Standard draft. Live in San Francisco for any of the techies who live here. Those not in the Bay Area can conference in. - 10-12 teams depending on interest / feedback - Each team / manager (or more likely his / her company) will be profiled on this blog - League will be managed through ESPN Fantasy League - but with some banter and recapping on the blog - Must start 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 receivers, 1 tight end, 1 kicker, 1 defense and 1 offensive flex player each week

Thoughts? Who's in? Either email me or leave a comment. I'm looking for 10-12 people / teams!!

Sports Illustrated Moves Fantasy Football onto Facebook; Tries to Catch Up

Like it or not, fantasy football is important. According to the New York Times, 15.5 million people play fantasy football each year - about 86% of which are are male and 63% are under age 40. It's also become a $2 billion industry.

So when Sports Illustrated (SI.com) moved their fantasy football to Facebook, two things became apparent:

1) Sports Illustrated isn't the leader in fantasy football and is trying to aggressively catch up 2) Facebook has become completely mainstream and, for the big brands, an avenue for user acquisition (important to note that fantasy football is comprised heavily of adult males as well - so SI is using Facebook to acquire users outside of high school / college)

Sports Illustrated, according to TheBigLead and Comscore, was the ninth most visited sports network on the web... and in fantasy football, Yahoo, ESPN and CBS are the clear leaders. Here are the stats from the last month:

1. Yahoo Sports: 22,752,000 uniques 2. ESPN: 20,601,000 uniques 3. Fox Sports: 15,105,000 uniques 4. MLB.com: 11,917,000 uniques 5. AOL Sports: 10,632,000 uniques 6. WWE: 6,759,000 uniques 7. NBA: 5,740,000 uniques 8. NFL Internet Group: 5,624,000 uniques 9. Sports Illustrated Sites: 4,492,000 uniques 10. NASCAR.com: 3,528,000

Fantasy sports are critical for the major sports networks because they are remarkably sticky, have high switching costs and attract clusters of users. So for Sports Illustrated to run their fantasy offering offsite is very surprising a clear sign (to me) that they are conceded the fantasy game - hoping to win a new market via Facebook's huge audience. It's an interesting effort and perhaps not overly risky considering their position in the market... But unlike CBS's smash hit with the Final Four / Facebook integration, this doesn't seem to have a clear proposition to get users back to SI.com.

Meanwhile, this seems like a big win for Facebook - just as the CBS / March Madness relationship was.

Notice the Facebook promotion atop the story headline

The Application's front door

InGameNow Opens API for Sports Scores & Interaction. What Can You Do With It?

InGameNow formally launched a few weeks ago - giving sports fans the ability to receive real-time scores and analysis via the web, the cell phone and instant messenger.

Today, InGameNow took a major step forward by opening a private API. We are looking for developers who are interested in using our APIs to develop something interesting with our sports community and content... and there are numerous opportunities to engage users and enable real-time interaction / information-sharing for sports fans.

So whether you are interested in taking sports mobile, creating sport / team specific communities, or something completely unique... InGameNow wants to hear from you. You can contact me directly.

InGameNow: Twitter for Sports

A Guide to Swimming Alcatraz

This Saturday, I will compete in the famed Alcatraz swim race for the seventh time and will joined by last year's winner and co-founder of InGameNow, Steuart Martens, and Widgetbox CEO Will Price. We will be swimming in the Alcatraz 100 swim race which was recently named one of the ten best open water swims behind other famous events like the Waikiki Roughwater Swim and the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. It's clearly not tech related (so if you read this blog for tech news, I apologize), but I am frequently asked about the Alcatraz swim and, with the race a couple days away, I thought it was worthwhile to post a guide to swimming Alcatraz.

Two Alcatraz Courses There are two Alcatraz courses: the most common is from the rock almost directly south into the Aquatic Park beaches. This swim is (if swum perfectly) 1.25 miles long and the last quarter mile is actually protected within Aquatic Park (in a cove near the wharf with a concrete opening for boats). The second course, shown below, is into the beaches of Chrissy Fields. This course is roughly 1.75 miles long and is far more difficult because it requires better sighting and mapping - in addition to better conditioning. The mixture of currents makes the Chrissy Fields swim very difficult. As an example, I swam the Aquatic Park course as part of the Alcatraz 100 race in 2004 and placed 2nd with a time of 28:14. Of course conditions were not equal, I swam the Chrissy Fields course in July 2006 and it took 39 minutes.

View Larger Map

Alcatraz Water Temperatures The hardest part about the swim is clearly the frigid water temperatures which can range from 57-63 degrees depending on the time of year and the city's weather. The first year that I swum the race, the water was around 63 degrees and last summer it was just under 60... I recommend a wetsuit, although Steuart swam the race last year in nothing more than a Speedo. Either way, it's important that you condition yourself for the water temperature and swimming in a wetsuit. Aquatic Park is a great place to get a feel for what the water is like and how different swimming in a wetsuit is. One piece of advice I give is that you will always find Aquatic Park colder because, on race day, your adrenaline is so great that it somewhat soothes the cold.

If you are particularly worried, you can wear swim caps made of wetsuit-like materials - if you don’t have one, you can wear multiple latex caps. Always make sure that your cap is neon colored as its much safer should you need attention or assistance.

If you can’t practice in Aquatic Park, it is recommended that you prepare by showering in cold water (seriously).

Starting the Race Pretty simple and pretty gut-wrenching. Hundreds of swimmers - mostly in wetsuits - stand on the deck of a big cruiser-boat. The race director blows a shotgun and everyone dives in and races to shore. The stronger, more aggressive swimmers dive out first. If you want to avoid the crowds and are doing the swim more for accomplishment than for time, I recommend waiting for the competitive swimmers to dive in first.

Alcatraz Currents Other than the cold, the most challenging aspect of the Alcatraz swim are the currents. On an average day, if you jump in next to the rock and lay back - you will be under the Golden Gate Bridge within 45 minutes! The currents push out towards the bridge, so you must sight east of the landing spot. For the Aquatic Par

Be warned - NEVER aim for the swimmers ahead of you. They will most always be to the your right and, by following them, you will be much further west than they are by the time you reach that point! They have already fought the currents to get to their current positioning - if you must follow a leading swimmer, aim EAST.

Also of note, it is ALWAYS better to overshoot East rather than West. Take a look at the images below used by GPS tracking - you will notice how off course some of the swims are. There is nothing worse or more difficult than having to fight the currents and swim upstream to correct earlier mistakes. It is always easier to swim downstream!

InGameNow Launches Post via Gtalk and AOL Instant Messanger

InGameNow formally launched two weeks ago - giving sports fans the ability to receive real-time scores, analysis and rumors via mobile, web and instant messenger. Today, InGameNow has launched an important new feature: the ability to post directly from GTalk and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). So if you're on the go, you can now receive and send sports alerts from your iPhone (or iPhone 3G if you're lucky!), Blackberry, and instant messenger clients.

InGameNow: Twitter for Sports

To receive InGameNow alerts via instant messenger or email:

- register at www.ingamenow.com... it's free - go to the "My Preferences" page... linked atop each page - select whether to receive alerts for your favorite teams, users and/or the entire network - insert your Gtalk or AIM user-id into the form - add "ingamenow@gmail.com" or "ingamenow" to your GTalk or AIM buddy list respectively

That's it. Now you'll never miss a score or a rumor. And you'll never have a reason not to interact with other sports fans.

The NFL is Worth More than NBA + MLB - Average Franchise Worth $960 Million!

There are 123 professional sports teams across the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. The Dallas Cowboys are worth an estimated 1.5 billion dollars - ranking #1 - and the Nashville Predators are the least valuable team at $143 million. Some very interesting takeaways came from digging into the data: - The average NFL franchise is valued at $960 million. MLB's average is $475. The NBA average is $375. And NHL's average is $200.

- One way is to read this is that the NFL is worth more than Major League Baseball plus the National Basketball Association... amazing.

- The New York Yankees are the only non-NFL franchise in the top 27. The Mets, Red Sox and Dodgers are the only other MLB franchises in the top 40.

- In the NBA, the New York Knicks are the most valuable franchise despite being horrendous for the last several years... proof that market size and hometown are the key influencer. The top four teams (Knicks, Lakers, Bulls and Pistons) are four of the most storied, winning franchises.

- Baseball has the biggest disparity from top to bottom while the NFL - a league known for its parity - is pretty flat... so the least valuable team, the Atlanta Falcons, can still be competitive. This is also interesting because the Falcons have fallen terribly after losing Michael Vick - one of the league's most marketable players.

- The Toronto Maple Leafs are the most valuable NHL franchise and rank 57th overall at $413 million. That's over two times the league average.

- The Boston Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins are worth 1.45 billion combined... less than the Dallas Cowboys.

The 50 Most Valuable Sports Franchises

Rank Team Current Value 1 ($mil) 1 Dallas Cowboys 1,500 2 Washington Redskins 1,467 3 New York Yankees 1,306 4 New England Patriots 1,199 5 Houston Texans 1,056 6 Philadelphia Eagles 1,052 7 Denver Broncos 994 8 Chicago Bears 984 9 New York Giants 974 10 Cleveland Browns 969 11 New York Jets 967 12 Baltimore Ravens 965 13 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 963 14 Kansas City Chiefs 960 15 Carolina Panthers 956 16 Miami Dolphins 942 17 Pittsburgh Steelers 929 18 Green Bay Packers 927 19 Tennessee Titans 922 20 Seattle Seahawks 921 21 Cincinnati Bengals 912 22 Indianapolis Colts 911 23 St Louis Rams 908 24 Arizona Cardinals 888 25 Detroit Lions 870 26 New Orleans Saints 854 27 San Diego Chargers 826 28 New York Mets 824 29 Buffalo Bills 821 30 Boston Red Sox 816 31 Oakland Raiders 812 32 Jacksonville Jaguars 811 33 San Francisco 49ers 799 34 Atlanta Falcons 796 35 Minnesota Vikings 782 36 Los Angeles Dodgers 694 37 Chicago Cubs 642 38 New York Knicks 608 39 Los Angeles Lakers 560 40 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 500 41 Chicago Bulls 500 42 Atlanta Braves 497 43 San Francisco Giants 494 44 St Louis Cardinals 484 45 Philadelphia Phillies 481 46 Detroit Pistons 477 47 Seattle Mariners 466 48 Houston Astros 463 49 Houston Rockets 462 50 Dallas Mavericks 461

The NBA's Most Valuable Teams

The NFL's Most Valuable Teams

The MLB's Most Valuable Teams

Get Patriots Rumors & Patriots Scores

beRecruited Surpasses 3,000,000 Recruiting Connections; Garners Press

It's been a big few days for beRecruited. Most importantly, we passed our 3,000,000th recruiting connection in late June - a significant milestone as it's a great barometer of beRecruited's growth and effectiveness. The 2,000,000th connection came just six months ago in early January (2008).

Another measure of beRecruited's effectiveness is the flurry of positive newspaper articles over the last few days. Each article covers athletes who found recruiting success through beRecruited - one even compared the experience to that of a highly sought after 'free agent'. These are just a couple of the stories that have helped us reach 3,000,000 recruiting connections - but they are testaments to the power of the service and the community (which makes all of us proud to be a part of it):

She shoots, she scores with online recruiters - The Globe & Mail

This fall, the 17-year-old Mississauga right winger will be lacing up her skates for Brown University in Rhode Island, thanks in part to a site called beRecruited.com, a sports-oriented social networking service that aims to connect amateur athletes with recruiters and coaches.... She posted her grades, her SAT scores, some personal information and her various hockey stats, and began including the link to her beRecruited profile with her college applications.

Within a few months, Ms. Wong felt like Mats Sundin might when fielding free-agency offers; in addition to holding discussions with the coach of the women's hockey team at Brown, she was fielding offers from half a dozen other schools that wanted her on their roster. Ms. Wong has since left the site, but is pleased with her results from going online.

"It definitely opened doors to schools that I might never have thought about playing for," she said. "It's a great way to connect with coaches and get your name out there, and it was cheaper than long-distance phone calls or driving down to talk to coaches, so I'm pretty sure my parents were happy about that."

Recruits Make Online Pitch - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Matt Houser, a 2008 Pope High graduate, recently signed both baseball and academic scholarships with the University of Charleston in West Virginia.

"Finding a school that was the right fit was hard," Houser said. "We tried other recruiting sources, some of which were very expensive. I had a couple of contacts through other services, but I found my school through beRecruited."

St. Charles Bound: The Bellville View

Chelsea Hardrick of Belleville High School was determined to take her diving skills to the next level. She was so determined that she went to berecruited.com.

It was a move that paid for her and her future. In the fall she will be attending Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo. So now this newly graduated Belleville Tiger will become a Lion.

"It is about eight hours from home on the road and only an hour and half by plane," Hardrick said. "I visited several other colleges but they offered me the most money."

beRecruited was also covered in the Rocky Mountain News: Stop the madness

InGameNow Launches - Brings Sports Scores, Chatter Mobile

I haven't blogged much in the last week - but I have good reason: we've been hard at work on InGameNow... and, just in time for tomorrow's NBA Draft, we officially launched today! InGameNow: Twitter for Sports

As I have discussed before, InGameNow was launched and funded out of sfEntrepreneurs - an organization of ten local entrepreneurs with varied skillsets. After a couple months of intensive work in each of our 'spare' time, we have launched a product that we are very excited about. The concept of InGameNow arrived from the team's two shared passions:

1. We are all avid sports fans 2. We are all avid Twitter users

But we collectively were disappointed about the lack of a sports presence on Twitter - and personally, I am a believer that Twitter is effective for open, spontaneous discussions but struggles as a medium to follow structured events.

The end result is InGameNow.com which can best be described as Twitter for sports. With InGameNow, sports fans can interact around teams, players and games... most exciting, users can now receive real-time updates and scores via Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger and Email (customizable by frequency and content) - so even if you can't attend or view your team's next game, you'll be able to stay up-to-date and engage with fellow enthusiasts:

For mobile users, you can either us Google Talk, browse directly on InGameNow.com (optimized for the iPhone) or schedule email alerts:

We also had a nice write up on Mashable:

A new sports community called InGameNow, from the creators of the recently acquired beRecruited, adopts the Twitter method of disseminating user-generated information on sports news reporting and commentary. In addition, these Twitter-like updates are filtered based on votes, so the best updates can bubble to the top. In true sports community nature, users on InGameNow earn points for site participation, and can work their way up the rankings in order to become trusted users...

If you're a sports fan, I encourage you to check out InGameNow. We aim to have an active night of posting for tomorrow's NBA Draft. And (as always) I welcome feedback either on the blog or directly via email!