Let’s be honest, how could there be professional sports if there were no fans? From sitting in 10 degree weather with frozen toes, to arriving at a bar three hours before tip-off for a seat in front of the massive TV, the devotion of fans to their teams is what makes professional sports tick.
It’s this devotion to being a fan that is behind the website fanspeak.com. Created by sports knowledge guru Steve Shoup and his business minded sister Megan, the site gives fans of all teams and all sports a voice. Anyone can sign up for free to become a member and to enjoy the goodies offered by their new Fans with Benefits program.
For starters, members can interact with each other by posting and responding to blogs, creating forum posts, or talking back and forth in a chat-like thread. Along with guest bloggers who have experience in their particular area of sports writing, Steve posts discussion questions on teams or sports issues to get the conversation rolling. “Steve is basically a sports nerd – he is a sports encyclopedia and he’s finding a way to put his knowledge to good use,” explained Megan.
The site also has a new game-of-the-week chat, during which members can cast a vote for which game they want to be the topic of a live chatting session. “As the season expands, with baseball playoffs, college football, NFL and hockey all going on at the same time, we’ll do one big game from each sport and see what fans want to chat about,” Megan said.
Members also get some major perks in the form of discounts. Fans get deals on tickets through ticketnetwork.com, 10% off for sports apparel at fansedge.com, a discount to Baseball America, and a free deposit bonus to play in fantasy league games at draftzone.com. In the next few months fanspeak is planning to include discounts for various sports bars and fan travel.
Members also get $10 off game tickets at ticketnetwork.com for each fan they refer that joins fanspeak with more rewards coming soon. Another key aspect of being a member is competition. There is a weekly trivia contest and the fan with the most activity on their blog wins the “fanspeak hall of fame.” The grand prize is $100 to use at ticketnetwork.com. The site is also looking into a daily game pick competitions and will be starting a partnership this season with draftzone.com for a mini fantasy contest.
Megan says that the bigger their site gets, the bigger the benefits get for its members. It seems the popularity of the site has been growing. “There is a guy in Canada who created a blog about hockey on our site. He and a Caps fan in DC have been going back and forth all summer on hockey news…it’s so cool to see and that’s honestly what we want.”
Visit Fanspeak at www.fanspeak.com.
