Former executive David Katz may have already left his post as the head of sports, entertainment and studios in Yahoo.com in 2006, but he never really left what he has always cared about and loved to do: write about sports and offer something relevant to sports enthusiasts.
A Healthy Competition
At age 36, Katz will wage war against the other Internet powerhouses such as ESPN, Yahoo, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, and AOL with his website, sportsfanlive.com. Sportsfanlive.com is looking to be released within the week, boasting of Katz’s versions of customized contents, social networking, and even fantasy games. Katz felt that the other competitors have become a lot more complicated and difficult to navigate, so sportsfanlive.com is what he thought would enjoy quite a good number of followers.
Everything But Traditional
What sets sportsfanlive.com apart from the rest is that it is built for the next generation and with their evolving needs in mind. Katz stressed that the other sports websites have what he calls the “traditional media DNA”, fooling around with the site here and there but keeping them basically the same and generic.
Six months of planning in his Hollywood Hills abode have made him very positive and confident that the website is up to the challenge. The site’s features are naturally-flowing, allowing a visitor to create a community which is projected to have a viral growth. SportsFanLive is aimed to become the sports enthusiast’s Facebook, rather than connect to existing social networking websites.
Similar to MyESPN and MyYahoo, the users can customize their site, mixing in together the teams they love and hate. Additionally, the users will receive news from 4500 aggregated sources which are regularly updated.
The Secret Sauce
Katz believed that aggregation will be SportsFanLive’s secret weapon. Because unlike Google, which is definitely useful in searching for general needs of visitors, it has no clear perception of the specific sports needs of sports fans.
Through the FanFeed feature, sports-minded pals can easily share articles with one another or they can opt to use FanFinder application to alert their sports buddies to sports bars where they come together to cheer on their favorite teams. FanFinder is a zip code and map -based function which is a visual update of forums on rivals.com (which happens to be a Yahoo subsidiary).
A Sports Facebook
Katz also commented that SportsFanLive aimed to be everyone else’s Facebook, at least for the sports enthusiasts, that is. According to him, without a doubt, Facebook is commendable for doing a really good job at connecting people all over the globe, but like Google, Facebook is not specifically geared towards sports-related matters. The site aims to be apart from the other social networking websites by keeping sports their focal point.
Traditional fantasy games are out of the question at this point as he feels that fans may not have a lot of time to tend to season-long fantasy games.
Gaming Features
SportsFanLive offers gaming features that will enable them to challenge one another by posting or accepting wagers (this is akin to an online casino sports book which is user-generated) allowing them to either earn or lose Buxbets (SportsFanLive’s version of funny money). The feature is interesting (“they can compete on any topic they want against anyone at any time”) because he designed it based on the assumption that fans like to test their wits about anything they felt they know best.
Mouse Voting
Jeff Price, Sports Illustrated Group president for digital, commented that Katz may very well understand and know sports fans’ hearts, but he has misgivings on how SportsFanLive can sustain traffic and engagements. Voting depends on a sports fan’s mouse. Price also noted how interesting it is the way people can embrace the games made available to them.
An analyst for Jupiter Research, Bobby Tulsiani remarked that if Katz succeeded in his plan, he would be similar to other new web entrants who will defy the pioneers in existing categories. The recent research on Internet sports users showed that evidence is yet to be confirmed regarding sports fans who wanted to switch to other online sports space.
Full of Hope
Katz’s belief on his success remained unfazed. SportsFanLive may be self-funded for the time being, but then, he is positive that individual investors will be interested though he put off dropping a name for now. Samsung though, has already signed on as an early sponsor of Katz’s project.
He is happy to note that sports fans may not see it at present, but soon, they’ll realize that SportsFanLive is something they just have to use and will be unable to live without.
