10,000 articles. Just let that sink in.

Just three short years ago, though it seems such a distant foggy memory at times, my idea for a new sports site came about.  Pardon my stroll down memory lane…

 

Genesis

I was sitting in my living room watching preseason Monday Night Football — I don’t even remember which teams — when I started shouting obscenities at the television. My wife, busily preparing for another school year teaching three, four, and five-year-olds and likely not wanting to hear me drone, asked me to “write it down”.  A splendid idea, but where? How?

I mulled over the possibilities as the third quarter wound down. Would I create my own sports blog? Who in their right mind would care in the least what I had to say?

I spoke with my wife about the idea, and she was very supportive — the prospect of channeling my sports frustrations on the computer would likely have seemed a better option to the alternative. Having decided that I was going to go ahead with the idea, questions persisted: What to call this new site? What would its focus be? What am I hoping to achieve? Would anyone care? Should I see if any friends want to write?

Answers came in the next few days as I considered the prospects. I wanted to create a site where I could express my feelings about issues related to sports in as honest a way as possible while still having integrity. I came up with the name “Last Word On Sports” one night over a bottle of beer, and registered the name that same night.

Of course I recognized that I couldn’t do this myself, that I would need to enlist others to help me write.  I made some calls to family and friends to help with the project, most importantly to my university pals Ben Kerr, Mark Modeski, and soon after Kevin Gamble, who have each been with LastWordOnSports from the beginning.

I recall the days where we would incessantly check for traffic, with 200 page views being a “good day”. In fact, LWOS didn’t hit 20,000 page views until six months after the first article was published!  We moved at a very slow pace with most days averaging a single article.

We can attribute the turning point for LWOS to two very specific events. The first was the fourth in a new series started by Ben called “Top Shelf Prospects” (which continues to this day) where he examined the best prospects in junior hockey. This profile on a little known NHL draft prospect, Alex Galchenyuk, exploded. Having found its way into social networking circles, people started clicking. Not only did they arrive at our site to read that article, but they read his previous ones too. Almost overnight, we tripled our traffic.  Over the next week we received triple the traffic that we had done in the previous eight months. It proved to be only the beginning.

And then there was the Didier Drogba article. My cousin, Jack Stone, wrote a poignant article, “What You May Not Know About Didier Drogba,” which highlighted the fantastic things the Chelsea FC striker has done off the pitch for charitable organizations and human rights. The article went viral with over 500 likes on facebook and countless tweets and retweets. I remember Ben and I updating each other, and staff, all day long as readers came by the thousands to read the article.  I vividly remember telling Ben, “We’re gonna hit 5000 today.”  We didn’t — we hit 15,000.  The sky was the limit.

*** top article: “ESPN Breaking Basic Journalism Rules on Johnny Manziel?” – 70,000 views/8300 Facebook likes/500 tweets
*** top month: July 2014 – ~310,000 views and 200,000+ unique visitors (June 2014 was 300,000 views)

Last Word On Sports has gone through so many changes since those early days, and we keep finding ways to re-invent ourselves. I never want to stop that. I never want to settle on what we have, but rather always challenge what’s out there.

I truly thank you for visiting, whether this is your thousandth visit, or the first of hopefully many.

Acknowledgements

In my three years as CEO of Last Word On Sports, there is one lesson I have learned that has been the key to the site’s success: find the most talented people you can and really listen to what they have to say.

It has been an honour working with all the staff over these years. I’ve had the chance to see friendships blossom, and I’ve seen the pride many have in announcing to their friends and family that they are writing at our site. We have all been there for each other, through the good times and the bad.  I’ve been on the phone helping a writer whose mother was going into labour in his living room, and I’ve congratulated so many others on their wedding days or the births of their own children. I’ve also been there at times when writers hit rock bottom in their personal lives, and that adds a very human element. It also is what makes us much more than “co-workers”.

The point is that this is more than “just” a website — there are so many friendships happening all the time at our site.

I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of this journey, both staff and readers.

To our writers: Thank you for your words, your thoughts, your talent and your time. I hope you feel the pride I do in writing at LWOS.

To our admin: Thank you for believing in this vision. Thank you for the hours you dedicate to helping us achieve our very lofty goals. Together we will get there.

 

Banners, Logos and Swag

As we look back, now is a time to look at some of the logo and banner designs we attempted in the early days.  Some seem quite comical now, but all were the site’s featured look for a time (some longer than others).

As we continue to grow and innovate, we have outgrown our current theme, and will be launching a new (and improved) one in the coming months. On behalf of the almost 250 sports fans who make LWOS a part of their lives, thank you again for reading.  We have a lot in store for the future, and we hope you will come back often.

Best,

Michael Kovacs