BPSN sets new record
Smashed, destroyed and slam dunked.
Those are three apt words to describe a new weekly record for page views set last week by BP Sports Niagara.
Our web site surpassed its previous record of page views in one week by more than 3,000 with an impressive total of 20,119 views.
The majority of visits were driven by our coverage of the 57th Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament. Our reporting consisted of 26 stories and hundreds of photos that were on our web site not long after the games had ended for the evening. On Thursday during semifinal night at Ridley College, stories on three of the night’s four games were posted on our site by half-time of the fourth game. On Friday’s championship night, the consolation championship story was on-line on our site before the championship game had even started. Before midnight, visitors to our site were able to read stories on the championship game, the tournament all-stars and MVP, and the final leading scorers list which included more than 70 players who took part in the tournament.
The long-standing tradition of the tournament, as far as media coverage goes, was to treat the Standard High School Basketball Tournament as a week-long festival of boys high school basketball where every kid who scored in any game had their named printed and there was information on every game played in the tournament. We believe we have done a good job of carrying on that worthwhile tradition.
Our coverage wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Standard basketball tournament committee. Tournament co-chairs John Pilling and Randy Conlon and fellow committee members try to maximize the players’ experience at the tournament and we at BPSN feel we helped to optimize that experience. Some may say kids are jaded and don’t care, but we firmly believe young athletes still get a thrill out of seeing their names and images in the media.
We have been heartened by the support we have received from the business community which has contributed financial support to our site via advertising. Our site delivers value to our advertisers, but a number of them have come on board just because they believe in what we are doing. Like us, they realize the importance of spreading the word about Niagara’s best athletes and teams.
This past week has also seen a spike in the number of monetary contributions to our site using the support us button on our web site. We thank all those people for contributed this week and those who have contributed in the past. These contributions help pay for our gas, equipment costs and all those hamburgers and pizzas we eat on the run, racing from one sporting venue to another.
Bernie and Bill were exhausted at the end of last week but with that tiredness was a feeling of a job well done. We hope you agree.
