Write for a new Boxing website!

Arben · Post by **Arben** » 31 Jul 2006, 12:49

There is a website being put called BoxingTribune.com. It will have a newspaper feel to it, and they expect respected newspaper-like writing. They gathered a staff that currently consists of five writers in the markets of New York, Philadelphia, Maryland, Florida and LA, Virginia, New Jersey, and Las Vegas. They really want UK coverage!!!

What you would gain out of writing for BoxingTribune is published material on what will be a highly respected website. They are even in the works to join in a partnership with a major sports publication, and are in talks with newspaper writers across the country to write weekly columns for us.

You would also be a credentialed member of the media at fights, and you would be able to sit ringside, have access to press conferences, promoters, fighters, managers and trainers.

All you have to do is pre and post-fight write-ups and an occasional interview, but you can be as big as you want to be. If you would like, you can get on board as a weekly or bi-weekly columnist on top of that. It's all on your hands. Go for it!

Feel free to email address [email protected].

Name:
Email:
Location:
Phone number:

dondada · Post by **dondada** » 31 Jul 2006, 13:40

Arben wrote:
You would also be a credentialed member of the media at fights, and you would be able to sit ringside, have access to press conferences, promoters, fighters, managers and trainers.

With all due respect, please try and ensure you have some quality control regarding whoever you hire. If you don't and unfortunately recruit someone who doesn't know how to behave/write/put one foot in front of another, it gives critics of web journalism a big stick to beat legitimate new media reporters with.

In saying that, good luck with the venture! Sounds good.

Arben · Post by **Arben** » 31 Jul 2006, 15:11

With an editing team on staff as well as consultants on call, I think I have all my bases covered. I just want to be sure that the BoxingTribune reach extends into every boxing city!

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 31 Jul 2006, 15:27

It is a good idea, I like the name and the concept. However, if you want to attract talent, then you either need to be prepared for a very long wait, or find a business model where you can pay respected writers.

I've been involved with a few people who had what seemed brilliant ideas, but they fell on their arses because of a poor business model. In general boxing websites are not the greatest way of making money for any concerned, but if you can produce something of quality and slowly build, you can get there. There's countless boxing websites out there, the vast majority of them are shit, mainly becuase, as Ian says, there is no quality control. Better to start in one city and have one or two excellent writers than every city covered and shit writers throughout.

Arben · Post by **Arben** » 31 Jul 2006, 16:23

I have a CFO of a multimillion dollar corporation on as a consultant who put together an entire business plan for us. I am currently looking for a team to do fight reports and Q&A interviews, and build from there over time.

We are in talks with Newspaper columnists across the united states to do weekly columns.

Currently, my staff consists of people I know personally and people whose work I know well enough to have confidence in their work.

New York/North Jersey
Philadelphia/South Jersey(Atlantic City)
Maryland/Virginia
Florida
Arizona
UK
Vegas/LA

Thats where my current staff is located. This has been in the works for quite some time. I can assure you, this won't be another "boxing website."

We will also be airing fights, which will be a plus for the fans.

MightyWarrior · Post by **MightyWarrior** » 01 Aug 2006, 03:15

sounds a good plan - best of luck.

I've often wondered how much a writer like Mike Katz gets paid, any ideas?
He was poached from a major news paper ( though it's boxing coverage had likely dropped to zero I'd guess ) by Maxboxing, then again by Sweetscience. He must get paid a fair wack you'd think...maxboxing has subscribers, but Sweetscience doesn't...yet. And I really doubt their advertisers pay much.

MightyWarrior · Post by **MightyWarrior** » 01 Aug 2006, 03:17

sounds a good plan - best of luck.

I've often wondered how much a writer like Mike Katz gets paid, any ideas?
He was poached from a major news paper ( though it's boxing coverage had likely dropped to zero I'd guess ) by Maxboxing, then again by Sweetscience. He must get paid a fair wack you'd think...maxboxing has subscribers, but Sweetscience doesn't...yet. And I really doubt their advertisers pay much.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 01 Aug 2006, 06:32

I know that maxboxing don't pay much, they only pay their headline writers 200 dollars a month, hardly a king's ransom, Katz probably gets more. they are paying for his name after all. Max apparently has 5000 members, but at 5 dollars a month, that ain't a huge pot of money. That's $ 300,000 minus all the hosting fees, paying cameramen etc etc. Reckon the the site owner makes a nice fat wage for himself though, think it's Gary Randall who is the main owner.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 01 Aug 2006, 06:37

James,

You the man who should know, but is Max boxing something to do with Max Kellerman.... I don't know why but I always thought it was.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 01 Aug 2006, 06:43

stujones wrote:James,

You the man who should know, but is Max boxing something to do with Max Kellerman.... I don't know why but I always thought it was.

Nothing to do with Kellerman at all.

Arben · Post by **Arben** » 01 Aug 2006, 09:51

jamesmcdonnell wrote:
stujones wrote:James,

You the man who should know, but is Max boxing something to do with Max Kellerman.... I don't know why but I always thought it was.
Nothing to do with Kellerman at all.

Not now, at least. Kellerman was the origional main man at Maxboxing. Maxboxing also gets lots in advertising on top of their membership fees. Plus, with their pull, their hotel expenses are probably taken care of.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 01 Aug 2006, 09:56

Cheers, Arben- thought he was.

mattyp151 · Post by **mattyp151** » 01 Aug 2006, 10:04

jamesmcdonnell wrote:I know that maxboxing don't pay much, they only pay their headline writers 200 dollars a month, hardly a king's ransom, Katz probably gets more. they are paying for his name after all. Max apparently has 5000 members, but at 5 dollars a month, that ain't a huge pot of money. That's $ 300,000 minus all the hosting fees, paying cameramen etc etc. Reckon the the site owner makes a nice fat wage for himself though, think it's Gary Randall who is the main owner.

200 bucks a month is still too much to pay that shithead Doug Fischer.

MonkeyBiz · Post by **MonkeyBiz** » 01 Aug 2006, 10:40

jamesmcdonnell wrote:I know that maxboxing don't pay much, they only pay their headline writers 200 dollars a month, hardly a king's ransom, Katz probably gets more. they are paying for his name after all. Max apparently has 5000 members, but at 5 dollars a month, that ain't a huge pot of money. That's $ 300,000 minus all the hosting fees, paying cameramen etc etc. Reckon the the site owner makes a nice fat wage for himself though, think it's Gary Randall who is the main owner.

Very inaccurate info. There are 4 owners, headliners receive a decent amount more than $200 a month and the site has a lot more than 5K members. I figure the website does very well since all four owners do the website for a living.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 01 Aug 2006, 10:43

And you are getting your figures from where exactly?

I said Randall was the main owner, i.e he was the finances man. I think that Doug Fischer and Tom Gerbasi have a share of the business also, though not sure who a fourth man would be.

As for their membership, how could you possibly know for a fact how many members they have? Any figure like that is guesswork as they are not going to reveal their membership. Max is a good site, I wouldn't have written for them if I thought they were shit, but they aren't the biggest site, and aren't very big outside the US which is their major base.

Also, there are only a few who make a full time living from max, most write for other publications (Steve Kim for example), or have other jobs as well, I have spoken to a lot of the writers on there over the years, and believe me, most of them are far from rich.

Autobarn · Post by **Autobarn** » 01 Aug 2006, 13:33

anyone who thinks they're going to make a living from boxing writing is going to get a rude awakening. best you get is pocket money, so as long as it's a hobby and - if you want to - are getting media credentialed for fights, then it's ok.

Autobarn · Post by **Autobarn** » 01 Aug 2006, 13:34

jamesmcdonnell wrote:It is a good idea, I like the name and the concept. However, if you want to attract talent, then you either need to be prepared for a very long wait, or find a business model where you can pay respected writers.

I've been involved with a few people who had what seemed brilliant ideas, but they fell on their arses because of a poor business model. In general boxing websites are not the greatest way of making money for any concerned, but if you can produce something of quality and slowly build, you can get there. There's countless boxing websites out there, the vast majority of them are shit, mainly becuase, as Ian says, there is no quality control. Better to start in one city and have one or two excellent writers than every city covered and shit writers throughout.

Uppercut magazine?

mattyp151 · Post by **mattyp151** » 01 Aug 2006, 13:47

viciousmaussa wrote:
jamesmcdonnell wrote:It is a good idea, I like the name and the concept. However, if you want to attract talent, then you either need to be prepared for a very long wait, or find a business model where you can pay respected writers.

I've been involved with a few people who had what seemed brilliant ideas, but they fell on their arses because of a poor business model. In general boxing websites are not the greatest way of making money for any concerned, but if you can produce something of quality and slowly build, you can get there. There's countless boxing websites out there, the vast majority of them are shit, mainly becuase, as Ian says, there is no quality control. Better to start in one city and have one or two excellent writers than every city covered and shit writers throughout.
Uppercut magazine?

Magazines are a different animal now with the internet. You can't just be a fight reporting magazine like the Ring attempts to be. The fights are weeks, sometimes months late, and it's old news. The thing that has kept magazines like Sports Illustrated going is the differentiation that they have multiple sports and offer numerous insights other than reporting on a game. You don't get any scores in that magazine, just articles and tidbits on info that would not be known by anyone else usually. Ring just plops out a magazine with 3 or 4 interviews and the rest is polls and fight results which you could pretty much find anywhere.

To make it as a magazine, you have to offer something different. Get historical, makes the comparisons no one wants to make, get the interview that no one else can get, send reporters out to become a boxer for 6 weeks and take a 4 round fight at the end. Things like that make people want to read, not Castillo KO 4 over Corrales being reported 3 months later.

dondada · Post by **dondada** » 02 Aug 2006, 05:21

viciousmaussa wrote:Uppercut magazine?

Now there's no need to use upsetting language like that.

dondada · Post by **dondada** » 02 Aug 2006, 05:25

Mattyp151 wrote:
viciousmaussa wrote:
jamesmcdonnell wrote:It is a good idea, I like the name and the concept. However, if you want to attract talent, then you either need to be prepared for a very long wait, or find a business model where you can pay respected writers.

I've been involved with a few people who had what seemed brilliant ideas, but they fell on their arses because of a poor business model. In general boxing websites are not the greatest way of making money for any concerned, but if you can produce something of quality and slowly build, you can get there. There's countless boxing websites out there, the vast majority of them are shit, mainly becuase, as Ian says, there is no quality control. Better to start in one city and have one or two excellent writers than every city covered and shit writers throughout.
Uppercut magazine?
Magazines are a different animal now with the internet. You can't just be a fight reporting magazine like the Ring attempts to be. The fights are weeks, sometimes months late, and it's old news. The thing that has kept magazines like Sports Illustrated going is the differentiation that they have multiple sports and offer numerous insights other than reporting on a game. You don't get any scores in that magazine, just articles and tidbits on info that would not be known by anyone else usually. Ring just plops out a magazine with 3 or 4 interviews and the rest is polls and fight results which you could pretty much find anywhere.

To make it as a magazine, you have to offer something different. Get historical, makes the comparisons no one wants to make, get the interview that no one else can get, send reporters out to become a boxer for 6 weeks and take a 4 round fight at the end. Things like that make people want to read, not Castillo KO 4 over Corrales being reported 3 months later.

You make a lot of sense here, Matty. For example, in many cases BritishBoxing.net (yes, I'm biased, I know) will provide you with a fight report as good as that which will appear in Boxing News much more quickly.

But I still subscribe to Boxing News and Boxing Monthly. I could get into the pros and cons of the web and magazines. But am I a bit old school in simply thinking that it's nice to have a hard copy of a magazine? I probably am.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 02 Aug 2006, 06:22

viciousmaussa wrote:
jamesmcdonnell wrote:It is a good idea, I like the name and the concept. However, if you want to attract talent, then you either need to be prepared for a very long wait, or find a business model where you can pay respected writers.

I've been involved with a few people who had what seemed brilliant ideas, but they fell on their arses because of a poor business model. In general boxing websites are not the greatest way of making money for any concerned, but if you can produce something of quality and slowly build, you can get there. There's countless boxing websites out there, the vast majority of them are shit, mainly becuase, as Ian says, there is no quality control. Better to start in one city and have one or two excellent writers than every city covered and shit writers throughout.
Uppercut magazine?

Well, yes, that's a fine example, but was thinking of another boxing website that myself (and Ian) were approached to write for. The guy talked like he was taking over the world, what was it, boxingpress or something like that, but he didn't have a clue how much work was really going to be involved in what he was trying to attempt, or how much investment was required to get it working properly. What he ended up with was a slow as dogshit website, with the most horrific design I've ever seen, and bugger all content. Now the domain name is up for sale....

dondada · Post by **dondada** » 02 Aug 2006, 06:23

That's true James. I'd almost forgotten about that one. The investment never appeared and it was yet another one which fell by the wayside.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 02 Aug 2006, 06:35

DVD's I would rather own, but with Albums so many of the tracks these days are just fillers, that I resent spending 10 nicker for two songs that are actually any good, better off either buying a best of compilation, or downloading the tracks you actually want.

However, in the fullness of time everyone will be downloading everything, it's already happening. The media companies want it to happen, as it reduces their distribution and pressing costs.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 02 Aug 2006, 06:47

The streets are unusual in that their albums are sort of concept albums, where the tunes flow into eachother.

Greatest album of all time for listening to in one go has to be Abbey Road by the Beatles, although Pink Floyd's albums work pretty well of course

ABA Boxing · Post by **ABA Boxing** » 02 Aug 2006, 07:44

You think the Pro sites have trouble, i dont think i will ever get my monthly Amateur boxing news off the ground.
Getting a coulple of articles a month is near impossible.

So while we are on the subject of looking for writers

http://www.ABABoxing.com are looking for writers who would like to be part of our team, You can tailor your commitment depending on how much you want to do.

We want to cover as much Amateur Boxing from around the World as possible, to create a great International Amateur Boxing site that provides up to date News & Rankings. We welcome your input on anything you like related to Amateur boxing - tournament previews, fighter reports, news, features & interviews.

At this time we offer NO financial compensation for submissions. It's unpaid work for all of us.

Write for a new Boxing website!

Write for a new Boxing website!

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