Sponsor Pitch, which launched in closed beta in early December, aims to connect sponsors, properties and agencies to improve the sponsorship discovery/pitch process for all parties. I first heard about the company from founder Kris Mathis on Sports Marketing 2.0 about a month ago, so I requested an invite to see what it was all about. According to the Sponsor Pitch blog, they recently had their 1,000th beta user sign up, so I thought this might be a good time to explore the site a little more and try to help them get the word out. I really like that they launched in beta and are soliciting feedback and involving their users in the development process.

First, a little more about Sponsor Pitch. The site lets properties to upload a video and add information to explain their pitch and what they are all about. Sponsors can search through pitches based on a variety of criteria to find something they’re interested in. The search criteria includes:

• Property Genre (arts & culture, sports, charity, etc)
• Location (city, state and/or zip)
• Timing
• Media assets
• Audience demographics (age, gender, HH income)

After I received my invite code, I signed up as a property so I could explore the site. I searched for sports properties and found that there were already 10+ results, such as the AVP Crocs Tour and The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament. Each property has its own page, which includes a logo, description, who to contact, video, existing sponsors, and event location/s. I really liked this layout, which you can see on the AVP Crocs Tour page (and the picture below). Another added benefit here is that people can rate sponsor pitches, and the best ones appear on the “Hot Opps” section of the site. You can also share these pitches on Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious and some other social sites.

Next, I decided to check out the “My SponsorPitch” section, where properties can enter details about themselves (and I assume sponsors can do the same here). I decided not to do this tonight, but the fields were very easy to navigate and it looked pretty easy to complete.

Other interesting parts of the site include areas for resources, recent news headlines and a place for service providers (agencies, media, etc) to add their own informational pitch.

Overall, I think Sponsor Pitch has a ton of potential and can help save marketers time by allowing them to more easily find and filter sponsorship opportunities according to the criteria that they’re looking for. Did I mention the site is free for both sponsors and properties?

Have you had a chance to look at Sponsor Pitch yet? If so, what are your thoughts?

Overview

SportsVids.com enables people to create a profile and upload videos of themselves and their favorite teams and players. I like how the site enables people to search through the videos by a variety of categories (type of video, sport, level and country). Videos sorted nicely into three overall categories—featured, most popular and most recent. Members can also rate videos and leave comments on them and user profile pages. The site also includes a news section, blog and forums. It is monetized via advertising across the site (Google and others).

Contests

One unique feature of the site is that it rewards users for bringing new visitors to the site via contests and prizes. They do this a little differently than most sites. From what I’ve seen, most sites reward people who get new users to sign-up; In its most recent contest, SportsVids rewarded the users who brought the most unique visitors to their site, and first prize was an XBOX 360. Their contest page features a leaderboard, which is nice in that it taps into the competitive element of sports—people love competing to win.

Uploading Videos

I really like that SportsVids lets you embed videos, instead of just forcing you to upload them. Overall, the upload process is good, though I would like to see a few changes. I’d move the upload button to the very right of the horizontal navigation bar on the site and feature it in a different color so it stand out a little more. The goal of the site is to get users to share videos, so the more you can emphasize this, the better. I’d also give people the option to choose multiple cities/states for their videos to be categorized in; let people be as specific or general as they want.

News Section

SportsVids has an interesting news section, which aggregates the latest sports articles from the AP, videos from ESPN and scores from CBS Sportsline. I like that people can sort the news articles/videos/scores according to league. This news section is beneficial for regular users of the site, since it allows them to keep up with what’s going on with their favorite sport without leaving. However, people may be more likely to get general sports news from other sources, such as a league/team website or ESPN. It would be interesting to have some more unique articles and maybe an orginal/daily video here each day to complement what is there already.

Watching Videos

I like the fact that people can watch featured, most popular, and most recent videos. One thing I might suggest would be to show the full list of sports on the videos page above these categories (featured, most popular, etc), instead of only showing them when people mouse-over “Videos” from other sections of the site. I do like the fact that you can sort videos by sport, but would still list all the sports again at the top. I’d also have “Sport” listed as the top category since I think that’s the first criteria that many people would sort videos by.

When watching videos, the related videos section is useful and full screen mode is good. I also like how you can email videos to a friend or share via Facebook, MySpace or Digg. I would add a few other sports-related sites such as BallHype and Yardbarker. I also might give people the option to post a video response, if they would rather utilize video over text comments.

Blog and Forums

I like the idea of having a blog and forums that allow for people to engage in deeper discussions than comments sometimes allow. These are new features for SportsVids, so they’re not as busy yet as they will be in the future.

Final Thoughts

SportsVids.com is an interesting video site (a YouTube for sports) that has potential if it can get some more users. It could be a good place for sports content producers to put their videos if they find that their content is getting lost in the crowd at YouTube and other sites. SportsVids.com is similar to a few other sites, such as Sports Fananza and SportZu.tv (though SportZu.tv is more focused on youth sports and partnering with organizations to have a mix of user-generated and professionally-produced content). None of these sites is currently dominating the space, so there is probably an opportunity for growth here. The challenge is convincing people that they can be a good alternative to YouTube and other more established video-sharing sites, which may not be sports-specific, but still have a good number of sports videos.

LocalReplay enables anyone and everyone involved in sports (the groups listed above) to create a website/page that others can interact with. When you sign up for the site you can register as a player, team manager(coach), scout, content producer or fan. I’m impressed that the site has such a wide range of uses. For example, a player can create a site and easily share highlight videos, pictures and information to share with friends or anyone they like. A coach or team manager can start a team site that includes schedules, players, statistics, etc, and organizations can create a page to share information about themselves and/or an event they run. LocalReplay seems to have many team, league and organization partners, but one example is their recent partnership with Virginia AAU to provide an integrated interactive solution for all their teams to allow everyone in the organization to easily connect and communicate. You can visit the LocalReplay Virginia AAU page here.

The site includes the standard social networking features (blogs, user-generated content, profiles, videos, pictures, search capabilities) so I won’t bore you with that stuff. But I do want to highlight a few interesting features. First, I really like that you don’t have to be a registered user to view a lot of the content. This is great because it allows people to get a good taste of the site, instead of alienating potential users by not letting them see what’s on the site. I also appreciate how the profiles are set up –click on the thumbnail below for my sample profile. They don’t feel cluttered and it’s very easy to add pictures and video. I really like that you can easily add videos from YouTube via the YouTube Video Browser.

A few minor changes I’d recommend would be to go one step further with their video tags and make them so people can click on them. I also would consider sprucing up the blogs a bit to include some featured posts/videos and an option to subscribe via email.

According to one of the site’s founders, some improvements/new additions they’re considering include:

• Virtual training
• Custom media production
• Enhanced team registration management

Overall, I’m impressed with what LocalReplay offers. According to SportsTechNow, they’ve raised $600,000 in Angel and founder capital and are currently looking at additional potential Angel/VC investors. LocalReplay is currently monetized via advertising on team, league and city pages/sites.

Takkle is a social network for athletes and fans of high school sports. Athletes can create a profile, upload videos and pictures, participate on forums, see key stats, participate in contests and show their passion for their favorite sports. It’s backed by Sports Illustrated and features some innovative opportunities for sponsors to connect with this audience.

Basics

Takkle features a nice profile that can be filled with a variety of information, such as hometown, school, graduation year, height, weight, favorite music, books, sports memory, etc.

Photos and videos can be tagged, rated, commented on, and easily embedded and shared on blogs, Facebook and MySpace. Photos and videos can also be sorted by most popular, most recent and highest rated. Based on my research, the most popular pictures are of cheerleaders. Takkle lets the community self-police itself, so members can flag photos if they are inappropriate, and I didn’t see any that would fall into this category.

People can create and/or join groups on Takkle, to connect with others who share their interests. Some of the most popular groups are Takkle Recruits, Footballers and Stretching. There are also forums on Takkle, where people can discuss all things relating to high school sports.

Key Differentiators

There are a few things that differentiate Takkle from some other sports social networks out there. They have a very tight focus, so that gives them an advantage over other sites that may just be focused on many different ages/levels of sports.

1) Takkle taps into the basic human desire to be noticed, a characteristic that is especially strong among athletes and high schoolers. They have a section for featured athletes, where the most popular people (for each sport) can be seen each week. There is a section for rankings (top 25s and top 100 players for various sports (voted on by the community). Sports Illustrated also gets into the mix, giving athletes the chance to try to get featured in SI’s “Faces in the Crowd,” by uploading highlight videos and getting your friends to vote on your profile.

2) Takkle offers incentives to encourage engagement. People can get trophies for reaching various milestones (adding 500 friends, uploading 250 pictures, etc). The trophies are featured on people’s profiles, and this is another way people on the site can show off and get noticed.

3) The site taps into competitive nature of sports fans with a feature called “Throwdowns.” These are user-created challenges, such as who “Who will win the Eastern Conference Finals?” Or “Basketball: Best Dunk.” If you’re creating your own Throwdown, you pick an opponent (from your friends or an established champion) and upload a video or picture that people can vote on. The person with the most votes wins, and Takkle keeps track of your Throwdown win-loss record. Throwdowns can easily be shared on Facebook or MySpace, increasing the exposure they get to exisiting and potential Takkle members.

Sponsor Integration

Takkle does a pretty good job at integrating its advertisers and sponsors into the site’s features. An example of this is the Takkle 25, a list of the top 25 best high school basketball players (voted by the community) that is presented by New Balance.

Sponsors are also involved in Takkle Battles, which are sponsored competitions where athletes videotape themselves showing off their skills. The winner of these Battles is determined by the community. Past battles include the Wendy’s High School Heisman, Three Point Battle sponsored by Spalding and Bench Press Battle sponsored by Met-Rx.

Final Thoughts

Takkle is a very user-friendly and sponsor-friendly niche social network. I think it will continue to be successful in this space. My only question is what happens when people graduate high school. Does Takkle lose these members or have they found that they still keep coming back to the site?

If you want to check out Takkle for yourself you can join here.

Registration

When you decide to register, you put in your email address, password, choose a profile picture and then tell them a little bit more about what you’re interested in (e.g., meeting other golfers, posting scores and photos, watching video fly-overs of courses, etc). Next you pick which home course/s you’d like featured on your profile. A list of courses nearby appeared automatically so I assume they’re using my IP address to figure out my location–pretty cool.

The last step is inviting your friends to the site (if you want). You can put in their email addresses and customize a message that will be sent to them. I didn’t like the fact that if you don’t want to invite friends you have to click “I don’t have any friends” in order to skip this step.

Your Profile

After registration you can choose to further customize your profile by letting people know what’s in your bag, when you can play, if you gamble, and give more details about yourself. You can also upload pictures and change your location by dragging your avatar to a different spot on Google Maps. Your default location is detected automatically.

Using the site

There are a variety of things you can do on Stracka. You can find other golfers, golf courses, see pictures, view member blogs and participate in forum discussions. The golf course directory has an interactive Google Map that looks confusing at first, because it has a 100s of golf courses in the US marked with pin-points. But when you zoom in, it’s pretty useful so you can see which golf courses are in your area, if you don’t know. One thing that was confusing about the golf course directory is for each state, Stracka lists the top 10 golf courses. It wasn’t clear who picked this top 10. Is it the site owners? Is it the users? Are courses paying to get in the top 10? It was nice that you can click on any golf course and get an overhead view of it through Google Maps.

A cool feature that Stracka offers is the ability to track your scores and handicap. You can select a course and put in your scores and advanced info like number of pars/birdies/bogies, greens in regulation and average driving distance. Then you can compare your statistics vs. an average PGA TOUR player or Tiger, Phi, Vijay, Trevor Immelman or Retief Goosen. You can also compare your stats with your friends who are on Stracka.

No video??

The one major thing that is lacking on Stracka is video. Golf offers countless opportunities for video instruction, swing analysis, putting and chipping tips, etc., but there is nothing like this on Stracka. This is unfortunate as they are missing a huge opportunity to engage users with this content, from professionally-produced video, to user-generated content.

Another thing that annoyed me was I couldn’t find a link or way to log out of the site once I was logged in.

Key Statistics (as of May 16, 2008)

• Compete.com – 9k uniques in April
• Domain age – July 18, 2001
• PR 4
• Pages indexed in Google – 42,000
• Alexa Rank – 145,492

That’s it for my review of Stracka. Do you have anything to add? Also, do you know of any other golf social networks?

Click here for the video. *It may take a minute or two to load…

MPora is an extreme/action sports social network that just went under a redesign and is now looking much better than it used to. Users can share pictures and videos, post blogs, find spots to surf/skate/ski, etc and participate in the forums. According to the site’s homepage, the forums have almost 40,000 members. However if you check their stats on Compete.com, it looks like they are getting about 8,000-10,000 visitors per month. Either Compete is way off or the forum members number is wrong or there’s a lot of members who aren’t coming back to the site…

Whatever the case is, I think the site looks much better now. It’s uncluttered and easy to navigate. To attract users, Mpora is having a video contest (runs through May and giving away $1000 to the users who post the top 3 most popular videos. First place gets $650, second gets $250, third gets $100.

What do you think of the new Mpora design?

A few weeks ago the folks at ZexSports asked me to review their website. Since I just received some stuff they sent me as a thank you (t-shirt, hat, bag) and the stuff is pretty cool as you can see by the pictures (fyi the guy in the picture isn’t me), I wanted to tell everyone a little more about ZexSports.

ZexSports is an online community for action sports athlete and fans. It includes sports such as surfing, snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding and motocross. While the site is still pretty new and growing (they recently re-launched it) and there are a few things that could be improved, here are a few things I think they’ve done a good job with.

Incentive program - I think it’s a great idea that ZexSports has a points program in place to reward people for using the site. You can receive points just for using the site (referring friends, adding videos and pictures, leaving comments, etc) and you will eventually be able to redeem these points for free merchandise, discounts, and trips. I think this is great because:

• These days, people have thousands of social networks to choose from. People need a reason to join a new site. Simply providing a place for people to “connect” doesn’t cut it anymore.
• People love being rewarded and it makes them feel special
• People are competitive. They like to be the best/have the most points/be better than their friends and gain bragging rights. The points system at ZexSports could create competition, which is fun for users and good for the site, as people will be more engaged and spend more time on it.

There is definitely potential for this incentive program to reward users and help build the site. Another social network that has successfully implemented a rewards program is MyColts, which is the social network for Indianapolis Colts fans. Their “Colts Cred” points system will likely offer users the opportunities to win prizes, VIP access at Colts events and even special offers from Colts sponsors.

Keepin’ it real – The grassroots, authentic attitude/mindset of people in action sports really comes through with the site. ZexSports could easily have a lot more corporate involvement than it does but it has toned that down so users of the site don’t feel like they’re being bombarded by ads.

I hope everyone has a fantastic New Year’s Eve tomorrow night. As a reminder, the next edition of the Sports Business Carnival will be published here on January 7th. If you’d like to be included, be sure to submit your article here or to me directly at jolpid(at)gmail dot com.