Struggling sport forums

[altyfc]

Hi everyone,

As some of you will know, we have three forums.  The travel one, which has been running the longest, does quite well and will reach the 10,000 post mark next month.

The business forum, launched more recently, is slowly picking up and I'm confident will do quite well given a little more time.

The sport forum, however, seems to really struggle and I just can't seem to figure out why.  With the Super Bowl happening tonight, I had hoped we'd be quite established by now that we'd have plenty of discussion going on, but it just doesn't seem to be happening.

It's not like we don't do well on the SEs...

#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=sport+forum
#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=sport+forums
#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=american+football+forum
#4 http://www.google.com/search?q=super+bowl+forum
#5 http://www.google.com/search?q=superbowl+forum

We also do well for other sports searches - eg:

#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=rugby+forum
#2 http://www.google.com/search?q=athletics+forum
#3 http://www.google.com/search?q=cricket+forum
#6 http://www.google.com/search?q=basketball+forum
#7 http://www.google.com/search?q=boxing+forum

So... where are we going wrong?  Any help appreciated...

Aaron

[SensoVision]

Hi Aaron! May I ask you what is in your opinion successful forum? That's because I've check your forum and it's look just fine in my opinion, there are too much boards which could be hard to track so maybe you should think about some better categorization to lower their amount, to make reading a bit easier... everything else seems to be ok as for me.
And now returning to struggling, I guess that you compare speed of growing of your sport community to other forums am I right? if so I could have theory which could be wrong one(because I'm not a sport fan), but could it be possible that there are not so much folks around the web who searching for sports forums? of course they are around but their quantity simply lower than those from looking into business or travel, fans could be around but maybe they don't have time to spend times talking all the time about sports... That's my main guess, I could be wrong or could be right... what do you think? could this theory could be truth?

[Andy]

I think most people discuss sport in more social situations such as in pubs/bars and not on the web since there are plenty of people with this interest (you don't have to search for them). Just my theory. Or, maybe the top sports sites associated with teams or TV already have popular discussion forums even though they don't rate high on search engines.

[SensoVision]

I think most people discuss sport in more social situations such as in pubs/bars and not on the web since there are plenty of people with this interest (you don't have to search for them).

exactly, this is what I'm trying to say... I hardly imagine footbal fans sitting and typing message instead of sitting in bar with bottle of beer and sharing their expirience

[Andy]

I never found any webmasters chatting about SEO etc. in any bar I visited 

[SensoVision]

I never found any webmasters chatting about SEO etc. in any bar I visited 

you didn't go to bar I'm going to actually I have such discussion as my friend who work as designer ask me some advice

[Queen Bee]

Aaron, I don't really think it's anything you're doing wrong. I just don't think there's a great need for sports discussion on the web. Not to group sports lovers, but 90% of the sports lovers I know don't even use computers. I'm being literal here.

And like Andy said, most of them are either in pubs or on websites created by popular sports shows/channels. At least, this is my opinion.

[Scribbller]

Guys me and a friend of mine are both running a sports forum just started a couple of months back, we are picking up slowly but the trafic is still pretty low on the forums, it is wrong to say that not many sports fans come online i have seen sports forums with over 10000 active members its just a matter of putting work in the forum i am running right now used to have 1500 members but we had some adminstration problems so as a result we had to give up and start all over, right now we only hav e150 members but hopefully it will go up.

[SensoVision]

Scribbller and altyfc, I have an idea for both of you, I failed to do it with this forum but maybe you could come truth with sports... I mean that you make some kind of partnership, decide which kind of sports one forum will discuss and which would be discussed on other... and try to share your visitors... of course maybe it's stupid idea and that's the reason I never have luck to do it mysefl

[Scribbller]

Thanks for the reply SensoVision it all depends on altyfc if he wants to work out anything my msn is scribbller@hotmail.com

[spherica]

I suppose this is a bark on the wrong tree, as well as probably hard to do, but have you tried to get professional indorsements. I mean actually getting a few pros to post, may very well help you out.

Again this is probably way out in left field, but just a thought.

[Enty]

I heard a good way to get people using your forums is to create 2 acounts and talk to yourself so other people catch on and join in the convesation

[Andy]

Yeah, I did this and read about others doing it. It's the only way to get a forum up and running fast IMHO unless you have very helpful friends with time on their hands.

p.s. are any real people on these forums yet? I started so many chatbots off with the give-birth and artificial intelligence plugin that I'm no longer sure who is real anymore   

[CoastPC]

I am real .....(0))..._+).+)}}}}}......ERROR,code ^6/break/(insert battery now)

Ahhh, thats better!

Now, where was I?   

[robinshood]

I think it looks good, but that is my input... I just like to visit forums and check them out...