Three MU students create sports Web site

By Jaryd Wilson

Published Feb. 13, 2007

Sports fans are passionate and argumentative about their opinions, but few will go to the length three MU journalism students have to make their opinions public.

Freshmen Tim Dwyer, Greg Mitchell and Ken Boehlke created ForeverRivals.com, a sports Web site designed to display the opinions of the three creators and their writers.

The Web site also features news about the latest sporting events, games and stories, in addition to a scoreboard, mailbag and podcasts.

"We can write about whatever we want without restrictions, which is nice," Boehlke said.

Dwyer, who has also written for The Maneater, said it could also be something to put on a résumé.

"We want this to be something that journalism professors are impressed with and affiliate it with the three of us," Dwyer said. "Hopefully, this will be something that we're proud enough of to put on a résumé."

Seeking a professional opinion, the three creators showed the Web site to School of Journalism Faculty Chairman Mike McKean, who gave them constructive criticism.

Although Boehlke said he wasn't sure if McKean took it as seriously as the trio wants professors to, he said the group appreciated his comments.

"We were happy with the criticism McKean gave us," Boehlke said. "We need to show that this is a serious site and we're serious about making it work."

In addition to the work done by the creators, ForeverRivals also has writers submitting stories about various sports topics. Mitchell said the number of writers has grown rapidly and continues to rise.

"The site went up on a Wednesday, and by Thursday, we already had nine to 10 stories submitted," Mitchell said. "We have about 10 writers in addition to the three of us."

Dwyer said the writers' content is very good.

"We usually have to make some grammatical corrections, but we like what they put in," Dwyer said. "We usually get writers who follow a team or sport very closely, so their opinion is valid because of their knowledge."

It came as a coincidence that the Web site was set up in time for Saturday's MU game against the University of Kansas.

Several of the writers on the Web site, who are also members of Zou Crew, made signs advertising ForeverRivals in hope that ABC cameras would catch a glimpse of them during the game.

Plans for advertising in the future are already being discussed. Mitchell said members of the Web site team plan on putting fliers on cars at St. Louis Blues, Chicago White Sox and Cubs games, and also around the Kansas City area.

Boehlke is the designer of the Web site and the one who posts all of the content. He said a referral link and the locations of the 100 most recent visitors are available so he can see where they are from and how they were referred to the site.

"The forums and Facebook groups are bringing in a lot of people," Boehlke said.

The number of visitors to the Web site started slow but has increased steadily.

"We're already over 5,000 hits," Boehlke said. "We're getting about 800 hits per day now."

Those hits have come from various states and 13 countries so far.

Boehlke said the Web site is different because it does not contain the same material found on other sports Web sites.

"We don't publish the same stuff as sites like ESPN and Sports Illustrated because we want to take a different approach," Boehlke said. "For example, when Brett Favre announced his return, I wrote an article about why he shouldn't return. Other sports sites can't and won't write about that."

Dwyer said he thinks sports journalism is too biased.

"We want to focus on the good as well as the bad," Dwyer said. "Every time there is a steroid story, it's the first thing covered, but we don't want to be like all of the other sites and cover the same material."

In addition to the opinionated articles, ForeverRivals is updated two or three times each day with power rankings for most sports, a scoreboard and off-season coverage of the NFL and baseball's major leagues.

"We know people go other places for those things," Mitchell said. "But we think it's a nice thing to have, especially if you're already on the site."

Dwyer said his favorite parts of the site are the mailbag and podcasts.

"The mail bag is set up for anyone who wants to comment on our stories to e-mail us," Dwyer said. "All e-mails are posted on the site, and we try to get replies up within a half-hour."

Boehlke said the Web site was relatively inexpensive to create, costing $50 to register the domain, get e-mail accounts and put it on Google's search results.

The creators said they are not going to attempt to make money off of the Web site by selling ads.

"Our goal is to present our opinions, " Mitchell said. "We're only going to sell ads if we're really having success after a while."