SPORTS

The Best Fan-Created Sports Sites on the Web
by
Chuck Bednar
Copyright (c) 1998 Chuck Bednar. All rights reserved.

According to Jerry Preeper of AllSports, there are over four million sports sites on the Internet.
 

 "With the explosive growth of the Net and its ease of access, there has been an incredible surge in sports on the Web, particularly in the area of fan sites," he said. "Just about anyone today can get a couple of megs free somewhere and build their own fan site for their favorite team. There are just too many, and more and more pop up every day."

 And with the growing number of fan sites devoted to athletics, the inevitable question arises: where do knowledge-hungry fans turn for information on their favorite sports, teams, and athletes?
 

AllSports offers a solution: a single site constructed from fan pages covering athletic events of all kinds.
 

 "In 1994, we at AllSports initiated a plan to build a large online sports media site where fans can express their opinions and maintain their allegiance to their team while showcasing their journalistic capabilities," Preeper explained. "We look for people with good writing skills who are capable of assembling a team of people with diverse skills-writing, graphic design, technical skills, etc.-to build a site for their team that lets them and their fans express their opinions and write about that team."

 Since that time, Preeper reports unprecedented growth for the site, boasting nearly 65,000 hits since November.
 

 "What we are building here is a community site that is unique, highly focused, and presents Web surfers with a single-source site that contains thousands of pages of information on sports teams worldwide...information from their peers-other fans," he said. "We now have somewhere between 150 and 200 people contributing to AllSports, many updating sites every day."
 

 One look at AllSports, and you immediately know why it stands out. The home page contains links to every major sports organization imaginable, from NFL football and NHL hockey to the Scottish Premier Soccer and Rugby Union. In addition to maintaining their own pages, fan reporters collaborate on special sites previewing events such as the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals. Interested fans are even given an opportunity to fill out an application and perhaps join the AllSports team.
 

 Among the top fan pages at AllSports is Oil Slick Magazine. The strength of this site is the effort put into it by the 11-person staff.
 

 "All of these folks would bleed midnight blue and copper if you cut them," Preeper said. "Recently, there was an offer made for the team that might have moved them from Edmonton. The group working on this site became very vocal opponents of that plan, even going so far as raising $2,000 in the 'Oilers Forever' fund."
 

 According to Preeper, the most popular area of Oil Slick Magazine is the post-game show. It also contains in-depth game reviews, standings, player information, and more, and they only report exclusive articles and features.
 

 Fans of the New York Rangers will love Rangers Fan Central. Rangers Fan Central also reports only stories which are exclusive to their site. In addition, the site loads very quickly and is very easy to navigate. According to Preeper, the 14-person staff updates this site as many as three to four times A DAY! Also, there are a lot of opportunities for interaction, including polls, chat boards, trivia, and message boards.
 

NBA StatSite is fairly new to the AllSports network, but its uniqueness makes it a must-see for hoops fans. Instead of focusing their efforts on a particular team, the staff of this site directed their energy toward reporting just about every NBA statistic in existence dating back to the 1988-89 season.
 

 Another newcomer to AllSports, the Phantastic Phillies Phan Page boasts exclusive interviews along with insightful commentaries and the latest news on the team. Preeper says that Red Sox fans will be thrilled by the exceptional mix of history and current news on the Red Sox Confederate Home Page (http://www.allsports.com/mlb/redsox). Features of this site include quizzes, polls, player profiles, and a message board.
 

Football
 

 Like the AllSports organization, NFLFans.Com is a network of fans who enjoy reporting on their favorite squads. However, the NFLFans network is entirely fan-created. The home page contains a constantly updated and sharp-looking news ticker, as well as links to individual team sites. The site covers a wealth of information for gridiron fans. Currently, features on the site include a column from NetSport Magazine, a link previewing the upcoming NFL Europe season, and a Mock Draft. The site has recently gone international with the addition of the European Coalition, which will cover the upcoming European season.
 

 NFL fans should also check out New York Giants Central. The site, designed by Ryan Ulrich, features original staff-written articles as well as a team history, a chat room, a mailing list, trivia questions, a newsboard, and a merchandise section. In fact, Ulrich said that the site might contain too much information.
 

 "I have too many features and pages of information, and I don't have any more room for it," he said. "I am hoping to move the site to its own domain. That would be a big step."

 Ulrich says that he updates the site four times a week, but that he tries to keep in contact with it every day by answering emails and responding to comments posted on the newsboard.
 

Basketball
 

 Tony Mescan, creator of Chicago Bulls 1998, said he tries to update his tribute to the defending NBA champions two to three times a day.
 

 "What I think separates my page from everyone else's is that I pretty much have all the Bulls statistics a fan would need, plus a photo gallery of (Michael) Jordan, Scottie (Pippen), and (Dennis) Rodman," he said. "I have updated news daily, Central Division standings, upcoming Bulls game schedules, a live Bulls game ticker, and some info on the United Center itself."
 

 Chicago Bulls 1998 has an excellent format, especially considering the space limits Mescan has. According to him, America OnLine limits the size of a member page to 3 mb per screen name.
 

Baseball
 

 Richard Legendre's Orioles Fanatics page has received quite a lot of attention lately. Legendre and his Web site featuring the Baltimore baseball franchise has recently been featured in The Web magazine and The Washington Post.
 

 Orioles Fanatics is updated daily, much to the delight of the 150-200 people who reach the site every 24 hours. Legendre said that his intention when starting was to write original articles about the team, articles that covered what Baltimore fans couldn't find anywhere else. Over 80 team links and 20 baseball links, a nice format, a comedy section, editorials, features, a memorabilia section, along with news and game coverage of the Orioles and all their minor league affiliates, makes this a sure bookmark for Baltimore baseball fans.
 

Hockey
 

 Cris Schultz started his Web page 15 months ago to have fun writing about his favorite sport while learning HTML. Now, Cris's Frozen Pond is recognized by many as the premier place for hockey news. While Schultz updates his news and game scores sections daily, he wanted to do more than just report the facts.
 

 "I added pictures and video clips, as well as history surrounding the Stanley Cup, scouting reports on all the teams, and even a survey so visitors could give feedback about the site, the sport, and whatever else comes to their minds," Schultz said. "It's something I love doing, and I hope I can keep doing it for years to come."
 

Skating
 

 While Donita Dupslaff also enjoys ice sports, her site is dedicated to ice skating, not hockey. Donita's Figure Skating stands alone as the finest figure skating site on the Net.
 

 "Figure skating fan pages are very popular and fun places to visit, but I have never been drawn to any one skater enough to spend hours a day maintaining a site for them," she said. "I created an all-purpose figure skating site which hopefully will provide people with enough information to satisfy their curiosity, answer their questions, and move them on to the next skating site on the Web."
 

 Fans need visit no other site, however. Dupslaff has every triple-axel covered. She keeps skating fans posted on all the upcoming events, chats with skating stars across the Internet, and other stories, items, and programs of interest. All of the above information, plus a ton of links, are wrapped up in a second-to-none layout package, making this one of the Web's truly outstanding sports fan pages.
 

 No matter what the sport, however, two ingredients are evident in all of these fantastic pages-a love for athletics, and the desire and dedication to bring the latest and greatest knowledge to fans day in and day out.
 

 "There are times when your team will go 0-10 or something like that and you might get discouraged and want to give up on your fan site," Preeper concluded. "Bandwagon fans usually don't have the dedication to be successful in something like this. To get to that point of dedication also requires a lot of knowledge about the team and about sports in general."

 Chuck Bednar is an contributing editor and sports columnist for The Canada Post, and his work appears in several online publications as well. Bednar welcomes comments from readers, as well as all assignments from résumés to press releases to articles. He can be reached at cbednar@reporters.net.