When Eric Christensen was looking for a pickup basketball game while in Singapore on business, he surfed the Internet and came across a site called infinitehoops.com.
The Austin, Tex., resident got more help from the hotel concierge than from the tiny Seattle-based website dedicated to bringing people together for pickup hoops. But it was his introduction to the phenomenon of social networking, the hottest thing to hit the Internet since Google came along nearly a decade ago.
Today, Christensen and his friends in Austin rely on infinitehoops.com to manage their lunch-time game schedule, keep abreast of changes in times or locations and ensure they have enough bodies to play.
"We are all at work and can log in just before game time in case it rains and we have to move from our outdoor court to a gym or something," Christensen said. "We are all in different buildings and different sites and trying to do this by phone would be difficult and the flood of e-mails with a basketball subject line can sometimes be difficult to manage."
Infinitehoops.com, which has about 2,500 registered users, exists because founder Tosh Meston, a 32-year-old former Microsoft software developer, and his pals found it "a pain in the butt" to organize games by e-mail. (Never fear hockey people, there's a Vancouver-based website called pickuphockey.com.)
Meston never sought advertisers, but they found him. His recently relaunched website makes an operating profit, although not enough for him to quit his day job.
Meston's creation is one of thousands of sports-themed websites that have been springing up like weeds, covering just about every sport imaginable at every possible level.
Most have modest ambitions. But others harbour dreams of becoming a mainstream sports version of facebook.com, the phenomenon that has attracted millions of users and whose market value has been pegged at a whopping $15-billion (U.S.).
"There are a lot of heavyweights out there and there are a lot of lightweights entering the market right now," said Shawn Saraga, 34, founder of a new Toronto-based, fan-oriented social network and information service called freemyteam.com.
Major media and marketing companies such as Time Warner and Nike have entered the space, as have big-time leagues and sports associations. Others have come to the market armed with financing from private investors and endorsements from celebrity athletes. But plenty are being run on shoestring budgets.
Most have little hope of ever making serious money, and their long-term prognosis is poor.
"There's room for a lot of them because they cater to narrow interests, but I don't think their business models are sustainable," said Paul Verna, a senior analyst with U.S. research firm eMarketer.
To keep going once they burn through their startup capital, the online businesses have to attract a steady stream of income from user fees or advertising. But the prevailing model is for free services, which leaves only one real source of cash.
Is there ad money to be mined from the sports side of the social networking phenomenon?
Absolutely, affirmed Scot Keith, vice-president of ad agency Lowe Roche. "At the end of the day, it just comes down to eyeballs."
But after reviewing several sports-specific sites, Roche, a self-described sports nut said: "I haven't seen any that make me say, 'Wow, I've got to be part of that.' Maybe they just haven't cracked it yet."
Indeed, although such big sports brands as Sports Illustrated and NASCAR have established toeholds, no one has yet crafted a mainstream social network out of sports.
"I don't think the stars have aligned yet to combine the intense and passionate interest in sports and the capabilities that a social network provides," Verna said.
The technology involved is not rocket science, said Harvey Smith, president of RSM Inc. of Vancouver, which runs and plays host to sports-related websites, including esportsdeskpro.com.
Can sports websites survive if they're not providing stats, fantasy scoring or other services?
"There's always got to be a good reason to go there and to hang out," Smith said. "At some point, these various social networking-type platforms hope that they'll be adopted by a particular niche. They'll need something specific to draw more and more people."
But they can take heart from Verna's conclusion: "We've only scratched the surface in terms of the business and marketing potential of the web, as it relates to sports."
