Even by Roy of the Rovers standards the story of e-soccer
(www.e-soccer.com) over the last 3 seasons is extra special – one man taking on the media giants in the new game of football web publishing.
The story started in 1998 when Kevin Pocock, a web design consultant based in Manchester, noticed that IBM initiated their highly successful e-business marketing campaign and e-terms were becoming common and accepted usage – the Internet was going truly commercial and mass market. He spotted that the big teams had taken their eye off the ball and registered e-soccer.com and e-soccer.co.uk before they could recover. (1-0)
He then set about building the first UK soccer portal – a directory that contains listings for all the clubs, news, magazines and any sites related to football in England – as well as latest live news, a forum and popular digital postcard section (check out the cheeky Beckham and Owen cartoons).
Successive seasons saw rapid growth and trophies galore, and e-soccer is now recognised as the number one directory for English soccer on the Internet. In a crowded football market it attracts over 90,000 visitors a month (think of Highbury and Old Trafford combined) and has grown steadily
season on season.
Unlike many other dotcom ventures the bubble shows no sign of bursting. There are no multi-million pound investments (and no losses), no glamorous offices and the marketing budget is…wait for it…ZERO. (2-0)
The site is basically run as a showcase for Kevin’s web consultancy company, Coastline DS Ltd. As Kevin says ‘Football is always a great talking point for clients. It breaks the ice and everyone has an opinion,
one way or the other! It has helped to bring in a lot of business.’
Of course in the world of soccer you need more than one good player in a winning side. Kevin is now looking for a buyer to take e-soccer to the top of the table and in to the Champions League of football sites.
‘e-soccer has grown way beyond my expectations. Its success means it is proving more and more difficult to handle by myself, and it is crying out for an extra commercial edge that I can’t provide. Basically I’m a
designer not a publisher. e-soccer has huge commercial potential and I can see it expanding in to becoming one of Europe’s leading soccer portals to include other football nations such as Italy, Spain, Germany and France
etc.’ commented Kevin.
To really succeed on the web you need an excellent product, great name and a solid business strategy. Online football is a competitive arena but most of the sites are non-league standard and have equally average names. In contrast e-soccer.com is an established, popular site with a name that
oozes class and credibility. Combined with the most minimal of cash burn it is likely to attract a fair bit of attention – even in today’s climate.
The biggest attraction for any investor or buyer is that football is sexy and the market is big, big, big. Kevin has managed to achieve so much with so little it will be very interesting to see what happens to e-soccer when
some serious money is injected. (Final score?)
For more details contact:
Martin Woodfield
Partner, ic-e
www.ic-e.co.uk
Email: martin@ic-e.co.uk
phone: 07803-626513