Margaret BauerIt’s amazing what can come out of a love for sports and a summer internship. Washington University graduate and first-year law student Shawn Siegel explained that he has “always been a huge basketball fan.” After his freshman year of college, Siegel took an internship with the New Jersey Nets, and, although he had had no technical training of any kind, he was asked to help with their Web site. And there he found his niche.
Shortly after his internship, Siegel started a Web site of his own about the Nets. He said that once he saw that he “actually had visitors,” he began writing about college basketball. What started out as “just for fun” became collegehoopsnet.com-known to many as CHN, the largest independent college basketball Web site on the Internet.
“I never thought it would be a business,” said Siegel, now just 23 years old. “It just sort of grew from a little hobby.” Until his internship with the Nets, Siegel had no experience building Web sites.
To fund the site, Siegel arranges advertising deals with ticket sellers, sports apparel companies and others. Reluctant to disclose exactly how much profit he makes from the Web site, Siegel said, “It’s definitely equivalent to what someone makes just out of college.”
With such a lucrative business, one might ask what on earth he’s doing in law school. Seemingly unashamed, Siegel admitted, “I don’t have the guts to completely do this all of the time.” Siegel only started the site three years ago, and when he graduated from Wash U, he did not expect it would do so well.
“I’ve always wanted to do something with sports,” said Siegel, who decided to go to law school with hopes of eventually going into sports law or management. He admitted, however, that he wouldn’t be “crazy” to think this might be something he could do for the rest of his life.
So what is the point of spending so much time and working so hard on CHN if Siegel doesn’t necessarily see a future in it?
“It’s a serious source of income as long as I have the desire to keep it going,” he explained.
And if he ever gets tired of it, Siegel said he would ask one of his writers to take it over. “But at this point,” he said, “it’s making too much money for me to even consider giving it up.”
The site has made great progress since its inception in 2002. This month an average of 15,000 people read the site each day. The page view count is up to 45,000, which Siegel said is four times the amount per day from last year and 20 times that of the year before. The day after Selection Sunday, there were 30,000 people reading through the site.
Part of the reason Siegel is able to profit from the site is that many of his writers do not get paid. About 20 writers contribute to the Web site, each of whom are expected to submit two articles a month.
“The people who do it enjoy doing it,” said Seigel.
Writers are given money to attend games or tournaments, but most of them do it for fun anyway. A lot of the writers “just love basketball,” he said.
Some of the reporters are professionals who like to write about their favorite college teams, and others are college journalism majors looking for experience or r‚sum‚ and portfolio material.
“For the younger people, it’s a chance for them to make some real money down the road,” said Seigel.
The site also turns a profit by not spending money on advertising. “First-time visitors find us through search engines,” explained Seigel, who thinks the key is to have links to his site on as many other Web sites as possible. So when people look up anything having to do with college basketball, colleghoopsnet.com is one of the first to pop up.
Aside from the 20 people who help with the writing, Siegel does everything himself. He designs, copy edits and writes press releases, articles and everything else all on his own.
Last summer Siegel spent eight to ten hours per day on the site, but for most of the year he spends less than two hours a day on it. He spent his entire Spring Break on the site and said he worked “eight days in a row, nonstop.”
Since he returned from break, however, two hours a day is hardly enough. As most know, this is not the quietest time for college basketball. Siegel said that right now he is spending around four hours per day on the site. “My parents read it and think I don’t do any schoolwork,” he said.
Siegel described his current stress level as “ten times higher” than it was during his undergraduate experience and explained that managing the Web site takes up most of his relaxation time. But unlike most law students, he contends that he is “able to keep sane” by not spending too much time on his work.
In addition to managing CHN, Siegel also runs Njhoopsnet.com and PrepsUSA.com and freelances for various magazines and other Web sites. After taking last year off to spend a lot of time writing, Siegel said that “being a sports writer would be really great.”
An interesting aspect of Siegel’s site is its focus on the mid-major schools. Part of the reasoning behind this is that smaller schools more readily give credentials. “They are looking for all the exposure they can get,” said Siegel. But he also looks down upon the more mainstream sports journalists who only pay attention to the big-time teams. “All they know about is Duke,” he said.
For those of you filling out second-chance brackets, Siegel had a few things to say about this year’s tournament. Although after its slow start he thought it would be a “useless tournament,” it became “more fun when the big teams started losing.” But he made the good point that teams like Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Bucknell might not make for the best Final Four game.
“Besides, then no one would be checking my Web site,” he said. Much to his chagrin, Siegel still thinks Illinois “will win it all.”Take his advice if you wish. After all, he has experienced some pretty sweet success in his own life.