Follow BallHype on TwitterSports blogging has come a long way from the proverbial guy in his parents’ basement, glued to a computer, typing incoherent rants about the game. In addition to the thousands of individual sports fans who write for an audience of a couple hundred readers, professional sports blogs like Deadspin and FanHouse produce dozens of posts per day and receive millions of visitors per month. Some bloggers collaborate to produce content and generate traffic through a joint partnership or by joining a network. Many sports blogs produce original, informative, and entertaining content that attracts large dedicated communities. Sports bloggers even cover for each other while they’re on vacation to keep their audience (and PageRank) happy.
To find out more about who sports bloggers are and what motivates them, Ballhype asked bloggers to fill out an online survey. 135 surveys were completed July 23 – 28, 2007, providing a great set of data points with which to work, especially considering sports bloggers comprise a relatively small segment of bloggers as a whole. (In comparison, the Pew Internet and American Life Project conducted a U.S. blogger study from July 2005 to February 2006 which yielded 233 responses, of whom 6% said they blog about sports.) Because the Ballhype population sample was not randomly generated, more research is needed to validate the results for broader application.
If diplomas passed as media credentials…
By any standard, the sports bloggers who responded to our survey are very well educated, with 56% having a college degree and another 26% boasting both undergraduate and graduate diplomas. Among all bloggers, the percentage with college degrees is 37%, and among all American adults, it drops to 27% (Pew Internet and American Life Project). And in contrast to some of the stereotypes floating around, most are either employed or full-time students.
- 75% are employed, 18% are full-time students, and 6% are unemployed
- 85% own or rent, and only 10% live rent-free
I have a feeling you'll find that quite a few bloggers are well educated and successful.I'm sure some aren't, but that is one misconception about bloggers that annoys me.
--Tom McAllister, Sport is Stranger than Fiction
Freelance screenwriter - I am not a bum.
--Brian, YAYsports! NBA
I just graduated high school and, as would be expected, live with my parents.
--Seth Rosenthal, Posting and Toasting
Sports blogging: more time-consuming than philately
While most sports bloggers consider blogging to be a hobby, it’s one that takes up an extraordinary amount of time. Even bloggers like the next Ariana Huffington or Perez Hilton would be blown away by the hours logged by sports bloggers. Among sports bloggers, only 13% spend less than an hour per day on activities directly related to their blog; 50% spend 1-3 hours, 26% 3-5 hours, and 10% more than 5 hours per day. By contrast, the Pew Internet study of the overall blogger population found that the median amount of time spent working on blogs was 2 hours per week. Question for the next survey: how do bloggers’ spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, pets, etc. feel about all this time spent blogging.
- 58% think of their blog as a hobby purely for fun, for 26% it’s a hobby that generates revenue, for 12% it’s a part-time job, and for 5% blogging is their full-time job
- 30% of sports bloggers spend 3-5 hours total online per day, 41% spend 5-10 hours per day, and 17% spend more than 10 hours per day online
I'm online all day long... and I'm always just checking back in to see if anything has popped. Thank God for the RSS feed. I just have a google home page set up with all of my Celtics news sources. A simple refresh and I can get any new info out there. The fact that I'm always in my underwear when I blog is just an old habit. I used to be a Calvin Klein underwear model... so I just keep up with the routine. Ok... it wasn't Calvin Klein.... it was K Mart. Ok... it was for the fat section of a local "big and tall" catalogue.
-- John Karalis, RedArmy.com
I've got a day job, but my day job is really boring and I sit in front a computer all day, so that gives me 8 hours to think about sports.
-- Doug Walters, The Science of Winning… the blog
Some visitors are more welcome than others
We didn’t ask how many people blog on company time, and for some people, blogging is their job. But if 36% of bloggers are spending more than 3 hours per day working on their blog, but only 5% blog full-time, then it’s very likely that at least some blog maintenance is going on at the office.
- To get an approximation, we examined the typical posting times for blogs tracked by Ballhype in the past 30 days, and found that on average, 924 posts per day were published in the 9 hour window between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM EDT. This represents 55% of all posts published daily.
- From the survey, we learned that while 80% of bloggers share their work with friends and family, 37% state that their employers do not know about their blog.
My employers, family, and friends know...I wouldn't want them to take everything I say at face value, but the me online is the same douchey me that's out there in the real world. I want to be read and respected. If that leads to something bigger, I'd love it. If not, just having some other guy like me read my site and get a kick out of it makes it worthwhile (every way but financially).
--Chris, The Blog of Hilarity
I keep my blogging hobby from my parents because, if I have a signature style, I'm crude and potty-mouthed and my mother shouldn't have to hear that shit coming out of my mouth. I keep it from my employer because I do most of my blogging from work.
--Jon Brooks, The House of Heat
As you might expect, if you don’t want your company to find out about your blog, you are more likely to use an alter ego online. 55% of bloggers whose employers do not know about the blog use a pseudonym, whereas this number drops to 33% among everyone else.
Interestingly, bloggers who don’t tell their employers about their blog spend less time per day working on their blog.
Possible explanations:
- This group is significantly more inclined to think of the blog as a hobby (74% vs. 47%) and may be less compelled to check their site stats and comments every hour.
- They may be more circumspect at work about checking their blog feeds or cranking out posts over lunch and in between meetings.
I normally write my blog while I'm at work, so I’m pretty much stealing from my boss.
--Morgan, Basketball Gods Diaries
Much of my time online is at work, not really blog focused. Well, except for filling out this survey, which is getting done on company time…I go by just my first name, making it harder for my employer to find out. Some friends know, some don't. Some at my office know, some don't. Nothing is ever black and white.
--Kurt, Forum Blue & Gold
Not all about the Benjamins
Although making money was not the primary reason for starting their blog, 51% of sports bloggers make more than $100 per month either through ad revenue or payment for articles, not bad given this money is extra income for most. The biggest reason for continuing the blog is because it’s fun.
- 31% state they started their blog on a whim, 26% to make their opinion heard, 21% because they found mainstream media coverage lacking in some way, and less than 1% to make money
- 49% make less than $20 per month, 33% make $20-$499 per month, and 16% make greater than $500 per month
- 95% said they continue to blog because it’s fun, 73% because they have an audience, 41% for professional development, and 32% because they’re making money
- Site traffic varies widely, with 5% saying their only visitors are friends and family, and 58% receiving 1,000 to 50,000 visitors per month
My blog did not start as a sports blog, but rather a blog for my Journalism class. I began covering sports on it as part of an class assignment. I enjoyed writing about sports so much that I decided to make Digital Headbutt a sports blog after the end of the semester.
--Mike White, Digital Headbutt
Started the blog because we thought we could do just as good of a job as everyone else out there...might as well see if we were as funny as we thought
--Chimpanzee Rage, Deuce of Davenport
Money, or no money (mostly no money), if blogging stopped being interesting and fun, I'd shut my blog down in a heartbeat.
--Al Beaton, The Wayne Fontes Experience
Strength in numbers
Although blogging can be a solo enterprise, most sports bloggers choose to collaborate with others either on their blog or elsewhere. In addition to linking to other bloggers’ posts and commenting on their sites, bloggers join forces to produce content and attract audiences.
- 73% are contributing writers for other blogs, but most blogs still have a single owner
- Among the respondents, 46% are the only writers for their blog. 33% have 2-3 writers, 6% have 4-5, 7% have 6-8, and 7% have 11 or more.
I took on a co-author (MaconDawg) in March 2007, both because he was strong in the areas in which I was weak (basketball and recruiting) and because having another person producing content freed us both up to pursue some ad revenue.
-- T. Kyle King, Dawg Sports
Jamie Mottram should have his own cologne ... for bloggers.
-- J.E. Skeets, The Basketball Jones
Blogging pays it forward
For most sports bloggers, the experience has been more rewarding than expected, with most reporting that they’ve made new friends. If given the chance to blog full-time for pay, an overwhelming number of sports bloggers would take it, yet interestingly, there are plenty in this group who say their dream job is not sports related.
- For 71%, blogging is more rewarding than they expected, for 28% it’s about what they expected, and less than 1% say it’s less rewarding than expected
- 76% have made new friends, 26% have received job offers, and 9% find that it’s been hard on their romantic relationships
- 90% of bloggers would blog full-time if they were paid to do so
- 10% would be a radio or TV broadcaster in their dream job, 25% would be a professional sportswriter, 30% would choose another sports-related career, and 35% would do something not sports-related
I've always been a big sports fan and a journalist, but I'd never put the two together because I always thought it'd be easier to get a job covering politics or crime. With some success in the sports blogosphere, I'm beginning to rethink that...
--Dan Lamothe, Red Sox Monster
I began life as a sportswriter in Green Bay and moved on because of job availability and pay scales. Blogging really fills that need for me to write creatively and get into long-winded debates and think about things in depth with a tangible result. That said, I'd blog full-time for a respectable payday if the price was even close to right.
--Matt Golas, Siberian Baseball
Demographics: WM
Hold onto the edge of your seats for this last finding … Sports bloggers are predominantly white males in their mid-to-late twenties.
- 95% male, 5% female
- 87% Caucasian, 3% African-American, 4% Asian, 2% Latino, 1% Native American, and 4% Other. This skews more white than among the general US blogging population, which is 60% white, 11% African American, 19% English-speaking Hispanic, and 10% other, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
- 31% are 26-29 years old, with a total of 89% between 18 and 39 years old
- The sports bloggers who responded to this survey are concentrated on the east coast, California, and a few north-central Midwestern states. (The thumbtacks on the map below do not indicate city but are merely representative of population density within a state or province.)
I don't think I'm particularly representative of the blogging community, because I mostly just get drunk and shoot my mouth off. Also, I'm actually funny, whereas most tools are just trying really hard.
--Stoeten, Drunk Jays Fans
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all of the sports bloggers who participated in the survey. You’ve helped us break new ground in understanding more about this community, and raised some interesting questions for us to look at in the future. We also really appreciate all of those who took the time to write in comments to provide additional context—and entertainment value.
We’re grateful to Dave Studeman, Miss Gossip, Matt Watson, Atma Brother #1, T. Kyle King, Ia287, and especially Tom Ziller for their feedback and helping us get the word out.
If you’d like to see the summarized results for each question, you can download the original file here.
Erin
posted 8/1/2007
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SG This is awesome, Erin. The results are laid out really well. -
Yokum This is really interesting. -
heitner glad to have been able to participate in this. -
DougWalters Great stuff guys. Really interesting.
And I really hope my boss doesn't see this. He thinks I think my job is riveting. Am I the only one here who has a dummy spreadsheet to pull up really quick?
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missgossip I'm naming my first child "Alt-Tab."
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Erin All the graphs should make it look like you're reading something work-related, right?
Thanks again everyone for taking the time to fill out the survey! MC Bias wrote he'd be curious to know how much writing experience bloggers had before they started their site. It's a great question and I'm sure there are others we missed. Leave suggestions in the comments if you think of something we should include next time.
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TheHype Another kickass piece Erin, muchos kudos.
And perhaps The Daily Show has affected me, but I think the graph for "Age" is very representative, in that it looks like it's flipping us off.
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Jason If there's a bird in there, it's probably directed at those of us on the right side of the graph--who suddenly feel a lot older.
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Skin Patrol We need to single out the three Canadian bloggers immediately and make them feel unwelcome. It's an internet tradition.
Show yourselves.
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dsmith Even more disturbing is the three from Utah. (I'm one of them). Especially considering that there is not one respondent from Colorado and only one from Arizona.
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SportsBizaatch I don't write much, but I waste a helluva lot of time READING blogs. -
bobman024 Great Study. I wish i had seen this earlier and participated, but very insightful and makes me realize that most other bloggers are just like me. -
bohchris The Senior Citizen Sports Bloggers of America are soooo going to have a problem with this survey. -
dmothe30 Awesome stuff, Erin. I managed to learn a lot AND not sound like an idiot myself, here. Brilliant! -
stopmikelupica Great work, Erin. -
extrapolater Dang. I can't believe I missed out on my chance to be counted. -
xtf_no4 were there any Europeans that participated? -
Seth This is fantastic. Happy to have participated. -
J Money Great stuff. Also, to the person who wrote in asking how much writing experience people have before they start blogging, I personally am a professional writer but of dry stuff, so blogging is a nice outlet. But it's such a great medium, it doesn't matter if you think you're a crappy writer... sometimes the crappy writers are the funniest! Plus, like a lot of trades/skills, the more you write the better you become.
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extrapolater My day job is editing financial publications - like J Money, I find this incredibly boring and not at all creative. I started the blog as a challenge to myself to write daily so I could possibly improve, and meet other writers. Both goals seem to have worked out.
I feel my writing has improved, as has my dedication to putting in the work. I also met more influential writers who have helped me find outlets for my freelance work, based on their liking for my blog, so in that way, it's been a godsend.
My hits per day? Mediocre at best. But I like that I can publish my goofy theories and put my first draft out there without worrying that it needs to be redone.
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PartMule Impressive analysis. Kudos. -
Matt P very interesting and well put together. great job, erin! -
tziller (Only seven Hypes away from the first triple-digit Hype in history...) -
Digital Headbutt Great job, Erin. This was a very thorough study. I can't believe I was quoted, but it morphed from a journalism assignment into the shining example of sports-blogging weirdness that you see today.
If anyone's interested, this article was my first true venture into sports blogging.
Why The UNC Football Team Should Hire Michael Jordan
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DougWalters Yeah, I'd be interested to hear more stories of why people started blogging. For me, it was a means of putting my thoughts out there for other people to pick through and expand upon.
http://footballprofessor.blogspot.com/2005/10/introduction-to-theory.html
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WithMalice Heh... as someone who fits well outside the demographic (I write from Japan), nice job! -
playersprayers Some spirituality in the quotes.
Erin, next time I'd love to learn a little more about sports bloggers' religious affiliations as well. Thanks.
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EthanJaynes Very nice job. A lot of thought went into this. I learned a lot about my fellow bloggers.
Ballhype is a great site.
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