11/04/2025
I really don't like talking about myself, but part of trying to get this business thing working is selling myself as an idea, unfortunately.
To wit, I've been going through some data after reading some of the Teen Vogue discourse. Stay with me here...
Much of the credit for Teen Vogue's voice and growth is owed to Elaine Welteroth, who pushed more politics into their coverage, and saw unique visitors jump from 2.7M in 2016 to 9.2M in 2017.
Source: https://fashionista.com/.../elaine-welteroth-teen-vogue...
Those numbers stood out to me, so I went to check the numbers I recorded for Habs Eyes On The Prize back when I was managing editor from Dec. 2012 to Jun. 2015.
The year before I took over the website had 353K unique visitors. The last 12 months I was manager, we had 2.9M unique visitors.
That means in 2014 and 2015, a little Montreal Canadiens fan site was generating more unique visitors per year than TEEN VOGUE.
We had no budget, very little support from SBN who only cared about American sites, I was making US$600/month.
Our team accomplished this without using rumours, without using clickbait, we didn't have any marketing whatoever, and no one on the team was an established draw when I started.
Our contributors went on to work in media, for NHL teams, and one even has his name on the Stanley Cup.
When I took over, EOTP accounted for 2.15% of SB Nation's total traffic among their NHL network. The network itself grew by 63% over that time.
When I left in June 2015, we had grown by 1119%, and accounted for 12.8% of all traffic through SBN's NHL network.
I should say, SBN NHL's growth was 63% not including Eyes on the Prize. Including us, the growth was 83%.
If I hadn't obsessively recorded all the data, I don't think I would believe any of that. It's completely absurd! But we did that.
Point being, Game Over Network is looking for investors to build a new space for sports fans to build community. The only impediment we face is capital.
If you want to build something new, something better, DM me, or email [email protected].
Unleash us.
If you’d like to help out just a little bit, you can support us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/thegameovernetwork
The future of community engagement in sport