I started this blog in November of 2012, and when I began, it was with the intent of providing consistent content by sharing my thoughts on the sports world.  Since then, I have not lived up to that promise and I don’t know where I lost my passion.  The last four and a half years have been a roller-coaster ride of emotions, things out of my control, as well as just pure laziness.  Since starting this, I have changed jobs, moved into a new apartment, have had money problems, anxiety issues, and fear of failure issues.  On the surface, these are just excuses, but in actuality have been real problems for me, because I have not been able to deal with them, nor have I been able to overcome them.  A good friend of mine always preaches to his followers to “get out of your comfort zone” and although I believe that and understand it, I have never really been able to act on it to the extent that I believe I need to go.  

I guess getting out of my comfort zone includes sitting down in front of this computer and actually creating content, whether or not 5 people read it or 5000, it doesn’t matter, just do it.  It can be frustrating when no one is reading what you write.  You put blood sweat and tears into what you post, yet your voice is not heard and you ask yourself, what’s the point?  Well, duh, if you don’t put it out there it won’t get read either way, so why not just post it, blast the link on Twitter and Facebook and see what happens.  Alright, maybe I will do just that. 

So here goes…

Beginning today, I will make a conscious effort to post to this blog on a daily basis.  It could be small, or it could be big, depending on my thoughts on a particular subject, and if you choose to read it, great…  but if not, oh well, it’s out there, and I am proud of it.  I suppose I have been doing this all wrong, in that I have been posting for my audience and not for me.  I do this because I enjoy it, and because of not getting an audience, I have been defeated in my goal of creating something I am proud of. 

Today’s post isn’t just about my insecurity with this website, it is also about a change with my Sports show.  As some of you know I have been hosting a web-based sports show “The Spots Nerds Network” (SNN) each week with my good friend Eliot Lomba for the past few months.  I have also hosted  “The Sports Nerds” on Sunday nights for going on six years with two of my other good friends Brian “Scooter” Cullen and Robert Arnold.  We added Jon Olson to the cast of characters a couple of months back and he has been a regular ever since.  First let me address the SNN show, I met Eliot a little over a year ago through another web show and found we share common thoughts on sports.  He and I joined another show around the same time and hit it off right away.  We parted ways with that show after about a year, and created SNN in order to continue our banter back and forth, and it was something to do separate from “The Sports Nerds” and gave me a chance to talk about sports more than just one day a week. 

We brought a few of our regular guests over from the previous show to help us with content, most notably Derek Lofland from FFMX to talk fantasy football and Ron Gallo to talk Hockey.  We found a platform that worked for us, namely Crowdcast, which allowed us to have up to 4 people on camera at the same time, and that made the sports talk that much more interactive.  The one thing Crowdcast did not provide, however was a growing viewership.  It was not community based, so the only way to get people to the show was to broadcast the link to social media.  The downside to that is that when you offer people a link, they can choose to either click on it or not, and most of the time, people did not click on the link.  Because of this, we lost part of our team this past week, when Derek told us that he would not be doing the show anymore beginning in June.  He has a lot going on in his personal life, most of which is good, and he just didn’t have the time to devote to the show as it was not creating more of a following to his website, which was his major goal when he joined us.

Now let me say, I don’t blame him, and frankly I saw it coming when our viewership, especially during our NFL Draft show, not growing.  We just aren’t drawing people, and Eliot and I believe the biggest reason for that is the platform we are using.  While Crowdcast is great for the show itself, it doesn’t offer an avenue for people to find the show, no matter how much we share it on social.  Our previous platform, Blab, was perfect.  it was community based, and it had a lot of traffic where people could find us.  Best of all it was free, unlike Crowdcast, which is $30.00/mo., and that made it perfect for what we were doing at the time.  Blab has since moved on, and we eventually settled into Crowdcast, which as it turns out was not exactly the same.  Eliot and I have decided to try and find another platform within the next month, and we hope to grow the show, but this also hits home with “The Sports Nerds” because that show is also on Crowdcast.  Eliot and I decided that after the end of May, SNN will either have a new platform in place or we will go on hiatus.  If we do indeed go on hiatus, I can not justify paying $30.00/mo. for just four shows per month.

So here I am, a host with a lousy platform, and an important choice to make.  I ask my readers (the very few of you out there) to present some alternatives and options where we might go after the end of May, because I refuse to give up on either of the shows, ESPECIALLY “The Sports Nerds” since we have been doing this a long time.  I have been searching for ideas and sites that offer the same type of experience that Blab offered, but to no avail.  We need it to be community based, easy to use, and allow 4 or more people to broadcast at the same time.  If you have any ideas, please hit me up on Facebook or Twitter:

@The_Sports_Nerd

https://www.facebook.com/scottwright127

thank you for reading…

Scott “The Sports Nerd”