Sports media start-up bags prize hat-trick

Winning a third award in its first year is just one of many achievements for Pundit Arena, whose sports website attracts 250,000 visitors monthly, raising its advertising potential, reports Trish Dromey.

SPORTS media start-up Pundit Arena has just pulled off a hat-trick by winning the 2014 Young Entrepreneur of the Year award from South Cork Local Enterprise Office.

Offering a sports website with content generated by articulate and passionate fans and journalists, the company won the Bank of Ireland Ignite Business award earlier this year, as well as an award and a trip to Israel in the Start Tel Aviv competition

Now attracting 250,000 visitors a month, the Pundit Arena website is unique in offering payment to sports fans for their contributions. It is like a sports blog only better, explains company co-founder Richard Barrett, who picked up both the Local Enterprise Board South Cork Young Entrepreneur and Best Start Up awards last week.

The website offers commentary on 17 sports, with articles written by 200 pundits or contributors as well as a team of four staff writers. Soccer postings are the main attraction but rugby and boxing are also popular.

Mr Barrett says the site is unique in offering payment to fans who contribute. Operating by generating revenue from advertising and syndicating its content, Pundit Arena’s goal is to establish itself as one of the largest sports web platforms in Europe.

The company came into being in October 2013 when its co-founders Mr Barrett and Ross O’Dwyer met while participating in the Ignite Accelerator programme at UCC.

“We both had ideas for sports websites,” says Mr Barrett. “I had an idea to set up a sports blog aggregator and Ross came up with a revenue model for paying. We realised that it made sense to work together.”

Mr O’Dwyer had a business degree, while Mr Barrett had started out as a PE teacher but went into sports journalism and set up a website, Sport is Everything.

The pair started Pundit Area with just €5,000 they received from the Ignite programme. “We put in long hours and built the website ourselves. In our first month we had a lot of content but very little traffic,’’ says Mr Barrett.

In November 2013, the site had just 307 users so the founders worked on search engine optimisation and targeted advertising on social media networks.

Getting attention and recognition was difficult but a few of Pundit Arena’s articles went viral and they began to build readership.

The website’s biggest success came this month with an article titled ‘19 Guys You Always See At Five-A-Side’.

“This has over 55,000 Facebook likes, has been tweeted nearly 1,000 times and according to Google has already had 1.2m readers on our site,” says Mr Barrett.

Earlier in the year, a posting about mixed martial artist Conor McGregor was seen by 25,000 readers, while one about Sugar Ray Leonard was posted to the boxing legend’s own Facebook account.

Mr Barrett says these are the type of postings which are getting attention and helping drive web traffic. He explains that postings from fans have to reach a certain standard and are screened and edited. “They have to be articulate, passionate, and legal,” he says. “They may be biased but never boring. Contributors get paid when their contributions get 5,000 hits.”

He estimates that over 60% of Pundit’s users are in the UK but says the website has a strong fan base in Ireland and also gets readers from English-speaking countries including Australia, New Zealand, the US, Nigeria, and Kenya.

Currently employing a full-time staff of five, Pundit Arena received grant aid from the Local Enterprise Board in South Cork and has also received some cash prizes with awards which have helped fund the company.

The award won this month provides €20,000 which will go towards hiring five new staff.

The company has begun to generate revenue from advertising. “We sold advertising to the FAI and UCC to promote their Roy Keane Scholarship and we use Google advertising, which generates revenue through clicks,’’ says Mr Barrett, adding that some articles have also sold to newspapers.

Ongoing growth in web traffic is increasing the company’s advertising potential and Pundit’s aim is to sell advertising through a media buyer — a company which acts as a go-between for big brands in selling advertising.

It is in advanced talks with Electric Media in Ireland and the AD2One Group in the UK.

To fund further marketing and advertising, Pundit is in negotiations with Angel investors with a view to raising a six-figure sum.

The goal for 2015 is to generate a turnover of €500,000.