What is the Deal?

[bender]

I have been meaning to ask this on the ask anything thread for a while but I have decided to give it its own thread in the Getting to know you Forum (probably the wrong place) With all the ruckus of the last couple of days, I was wondering whether LeagueUnlimited and Rleague are actually commercial sites that generate (or potentially generate) reasonable sums of money or are they just sites set up for enjoyment and general promotion of Rugby League? There is quite a bit of talk of hits and such forth. Does a large number of hits equate to some type of increased advertising demand (say like TV ratings)? Are there actually full time employees acting as webmasters, reporters etc? I have always thought that these sites would just be run for fun more than anything. Also, what is the real deal with the LWOS/Matt O feud. (not so much personal details) I know the website split, but I was just wondering, are you guys friends/enemies outside the cyber world. Their seems to be some strong feelings which go beyond him deleting a few posts and bad mouthing a website (or maybe I am too old and not up with the marriage of the Cyber community and the Real world. Anyway, those are a few questions I have wondered for a while as I battle for the honour of the force against the powers of the dark side.

 

[Willow]

Thats a lot of questions bender... needless to say, if you put the same post up on rleague, you would receive either zero response or some nonsense about matto's financial woes.

Okay, we'll do our best to answer all questions:

" [are] LeagueUnlimited and Rleague are actually commercial sites that generate (or potentially generate) reasonable sums of money or are they just sites set up for enjoyment and general promotion of Rugby League?"

Obviously both are interested in promoting RL.
League Unlimited is a commercial site; from the beginninng we have made no secret of this and indicated as much. RLeague is also a commercial site... the difference is that they choose to hide this fact.
LU intends on providing a professional RL service with the ultimate aim of paying all contributors.

There is quite a bit of talk of hits and such forth. Does a large number of hits equate to some type of increased advertising demand (say like TV ratings)?
Thats an excellent question.
Naturally, the more visitors a site gets, the greater the turnover of viewers. A site with high visitations can attract more sponsorships.
Rleague.com, for all their falsemembership ideals are negotiating sponsorship deals as we speak... good luck to them. These deals are worth thousands of dollars every month.
Needless to say, LU is running on shoe-string budget but make no mistake, we all have deep pockets.

"Are there actually full time employees acting as webmasters, reporters etc?"
LUare all full time employees who enjoy the job...but we dont get paid. I refer to my earlier paragraph where we intend on paying people in the near future.
I cant speak for rleague.

"I have always thought that these sites would just be run for fun more than anything."
Agreed .. 100% Any advice as to how we can reverse this trend will be taken in with appreciation.

As for the other stuff mate, I cant really add much except to say that matto has helda deep seeded bittereness towards LWOS for the best part of 2 years now. No one can help him with that.
I have personally decided to ignore all of that and get on with business.

 

[bender]

Thats a lot of questions bender... needless to say, if you put the same post up on rleague, you would receive either zero response or some nonsense about matto's financial woes.

I dont think i will bother posting the sister response up there. Although, then again maybe i should.

LU is running on shoe-string budget but make no mistake, we all have deep pockets.

I would not worry too much about this, you will find that the shoe string budget is the way to go no matter how much or how well your business is going. It is interesting and for me a little worrying (I do like the rleague.com site) for rleague. I have found that most multi millionaires i have met are not anywhere near as smart as you would think they would be in fact many are fruitcakes with absolutely zero business sense. Most go in with the bigger is betterphilosophy and before long they fail although one time in 10 they will stumble across something big and end up earning more money than us mere mortals ever dream of.

I amonly guessing here, but i would say that rleague could go off big time or fold based onwhat you have told me. I would notnecessarilly write off the stories of financial woes as beingcontrived to hide the fact that rleague is a commercially viable site. In fact the financial woes, erratic behaviour, threats to walk away would seem to suggest that maybe their is some element of truth.

I am guessing that Rleague started with just Matt O at the helm and slowly evolved with a lot of unpaid help. In the last year or so, i am guessing that Matt O started employing at least a couple of people at reasonably low wages (maybe even part time). What this would mean however, is that rleague would instantly move from the league unlimited shoe string budget (where it is possible to make some money) to being under pressure to pay the bills. Their lucrative sponsorship deals sound great but it is not all that much money when you are faced with the prospect of regularly recurring bills. I find that most business fold after trying to outlive their means for between 18 months and 4 years. Usually the common denominator is an appearance to outsiders of living the goodlife, ie Flash Cars, Expensive Houses, Designer clothes etc. Dont be fooled by appearances.

At the moment, I am fairly certain that Matt O has a monopoly virtually and is far bigger than all other sites (Is this correct?). If LU, were to take say half of his business, I would guess that his site would crash and burn and perhaps this explains some of his paranoia.

I am only guessing and generalisingat all these things i have said but it would surprise me if they were far from the truth.

I have always thought that these sites would just be run for fun more than anything." Agreed .. 100% Any advice as to how we can reverse this trend will be taken in with appreciation.

If i get time, I might post a few hairbrained ideas on here, but most people generally ignore what i say most of the time anyway when it comes to investment advice. This time last year i was telling everyone to buy all of the $40,000 to $50,000 houses in Ipswich and not one person listened (myself pretty much included) now they are all selling for 90-000 to 100,000 minimum but generally more. By the way,dont take too muchnotice of too many of my schemes if i do,because i really dont have any idea of the internet type market you are trying to operate on.


As for the other stuff mate, I cant really add much except to say that matto has helda deep seeded bittereness towards LWOS for the best part of 2 years now. No one can help him with that.
I have personally decided to ignore all of that and get on with business.

Actually, i think the questions you answered probably explained a lot of it to me.

One final question unrelated,
Is Sports unlimited online still operating? I see the link in Legends links but the site has been down every time i checked.

 

[Willow]

"I dont think i will bother posting the sister response up there. Although, then again maybe i should."
I think you should, it couldnt hurt and you might get a reply.

"...you will find that the shoe string budget is the way to go no matter how much or how well your business is going."
I totally agree. I've never had a business that has been run in any other way. Its always been a case of watchingthe pennies. In my other life, I have a business that turns over400K p.a.... but most of that goes to keeping the door open. It sounds like a lot for a small business but it isnt whenwages and otheroverheadsare taken into account. Interestingly, my neighbour runs a business that turns over almost 2 Mil p.a. - he and Iare good mates and wego diving together - he has almost exactly the same lifestyle as me and is no worse or better off... the only difference that he employs more people and runs more vehicles.

"I would notnecessarilly write off the stories of financial woes as beingcontrived to hide the fact that rleague is a commercially viable site."
Not having come down in the last shower, I think we can agree again that rleague is very much a viable site commercially... but really, itsnone of our business. Nevertheless, I do chuckle to myself when matto cries that its 'for the fans' etc.
Most people have a reason to put up with shit...sometimes its to do with the fear of the unknown...ie they are afraid to try something different. But usually its because they can see a few bucks coming their way.

Having said that, I used to be heavily involved in the music business. In a lot of ways, I've seen all this stuff before. It might be a different industry but I can see a lot of people working in sports for no wages...this was the same with musicians. The only guys who actually attracted a salary were the tech guys... the sound engineers, lighting operators etc. The musicians and managers worked for nothing. In online sports, its very similar, the ISPs are paid but the writers work for nothing.

The other similarity I noticed is to with the drama queens and dummy spits. The in-fighting is the same in both the online sport industry and the 'pub band' music industry. Some will be disturbed to know that their egos remind me a lot of those'drug taking twinkies' who only come out at night.

"I am fairly certain that Matt O has a monopoly virtually and is far bigger than all other sites (Is this correct?)."
Its certainly the biggest of all the so-called independent sites. Naturally, the NRL site and club sites like St George have more visitors but as far as Australian-based RL'fan sites' go, rleague would have to be the biggest. Mind you, this requires some definition.

"If LU, were to take say half of his business, I would guess that his site would crash and burn and perhaps this explains some of his paranoia."
I actually think there is room for more. A successful League Unlimited wouldnt see the demise of rleague. It the last year, both sites have grown without detriment to the other. matto doesnt agree but imo, his fears have no foundation.

"I am only guessing and generalisingat all these things i have said but it would surprise me if they were far from the truth."
I think you're pretty close mate.

"If i get time, I might post a few hairbrained ideas on here, but most people generally ignore what i say most of the time anyway when it comes to investment advice. This time last year i was telling everyone to buy all of the $40,000 to $50,000 houses in Ipswich"
Well I'm listening. LOL.
If you makes you feel any better, I bought an investment property (a town house)last year for a measly $95,000 in Nerang. The bank stood in my way and heavily advised me not to buy in that particular estate ('Paradise Park', it was nicknamed 'Parasite Park' and was full of undesirables...mainly New Zealanders actually...lol) but I couldnt see anything wrong with the place went ahead anyway, hocking our family home in the process. Six months later and now I've had offers of $130K which I've knocked back. The council has just approved plans for Cinema complex next door and a Marina over the road on the Nerang River. Sometimes we get lucky eh?

"Is Sports unlimited online still operating? I see the link in Legends links but the site has been down every time i checked."
Sports Unlimited Online Pty Ltd is the company name. League Unlimited is the trading name.
We started out, rather ambitiously, with a html site (sportsunlimited-online.com)that would report on every sporting event in the world. This was naive but all things have a purpose and we learned a lot.
Legend and I realised pretty quickly that we should play to our strengths and we registered League Unlimited.
The Sports Unlimited Online site died but out of it came and pretty damn good League site.

Having said that, we still have long term plans to resurrect Sports Unlimited Online as a mother site with branch sites emerging... eg cricketunlimited.com - but as you can appreciate,it wont happen this year.

Any further queries, dont hold back.

 

[imported_midas]

bender
i am intrigued by your assessment of the multi-millionaires you have met as "fruitcakes with absolutely zero business sense".
i suppose the internet boom may have thrown up a couple of these, maybe the property boom also threw up a few and there are a few who inherited lootbut as a general principle I wouldn,t have thought it possible to become a multi-millionaire with zero business sense.
I have met in my life 6 guys who fit into this category (including one billionaire) and all may not be academically smart but they are all razor-sharp when it comes to business.

 

[bender]

Midas,
I too am surprised. Usually most of their money is made through franchising, which is far better investment than any type of property or internet boom investment. In most cases they just seem to do something the way they have been taught to do it and for some reason things have worked. As soon as you involve them in different projectsor talk to them about other things which are not related to what they do, it becomes pretty obvious that theyhave no idea (maybe nuts is a bit hard and possibly it is me who has no idea certainly the bank balance would suggest this). Having said this, the richest person I know, who is Kerry Packer material is quite sharp and a penny pincher from way back.

As for Academic Qualifications, I really dont think their is necessarilly any major correlation between academic excellence and intelligence.

 

[imported_Roopy4246]

Before the names of Bond, Gowing, Skase etc etc etc became dirty words I invested a lot of money in their companies (lost the lot) and tried to find out what made them as 'successful' as they were.
One thing that stood out was that nearly all these guys had gone bankrupt on their first business ventures, but had come back and flown close to the wind financially time after time.

When the sharemarket crashed in 87 Robert Holmes a Court was asked by a reporter what it was like to lose a billion dollars in a day. I was hanging on his answer because I wanted to know how to cope with losing 20,000 (it was a lot of money for me at the time). His answer was that after you had made a few million dollars you had more money than you could spend on yourself, so it was only a game. This answer didn't help me much at the time, but I did decide that in the future I would only invest money I was prepared to lose, as he was obviously prepared to lose a billion.

All this might seem off the track, but I think that people who make big money are guys prepared to put it all on the line without worrying about losing it all. I hope I made that point.

 

[Willow]

Gambling and investing...not all that far apart.

 

[ozbash]

""('Paradise Park', it was nicknamed 'Parasite Park' and was full of undesirables...mainly New Zealanders actually...lol) ""

hardly sporting old chap.
i thought the kiwis were doing a great job converting you lot from your wicked ways..

 

[Willow]

Ozbash, that was the warning...to be more pointed, the bank was concerned about the Maori families. I dont have to tell you that I told them shove that attitude up their arse. I went there last weekend to visit and its looking good.

 

[ozbash]

maoris ? some of my best mates are of the cuzzie-bro fraternity...

you ever tried a hangi ?

 

[Willow]

Does it come with its own sauce?

 

[Willow]

Sometimes I'm a real goose. Hangi is food right? I thought it was dance or something, hence the smartarse reply.

 

[ozbash]

food with a capital F !
dig a big hole, light a big fire on top of some river rocks, train brake shoes and let it burn.
when its burnt, take out the ash,, put the rocks back (red hot), and stick baskets full of pork,beef,chooks,veges etc. cover with a coupe of old sheets,wet sacks.
tip a bit of water onto the lot,, cover up with soil and wait for 3 hours or so.
dig it all up and go for it..

beeeeeautiful.

 

[Willow]

All of a sudden, my sausagesandwich looks prettyordinary.

 

[imported_Storm]

With all the ruckus of the last couple of days, I was wondering whether LeagueUnlimited and Rleague are actually commercial sites that generate (or potentially generate) reasonable sums of money or are they just sites set up for enjoyment and general promotion of Rugby League? Rleague.com was originally setup for the promotion of Rugby League, and I believe LU was the same. Rleague.com was not a commercial site till around the last couple of months. There is quite a bit of talk of hits and such forth. Does a large number of hits equate to some type of increased advertising demand (say like TV ratings)? Hits do result in potential revenue. The more hits, means the greater repeat of visitors, or the more different visitors total. For sponsors they want to appeal to the largest share of the market as possible. Are there actually full time employees acting as webmasters, reporters etc? At Rleague.com there is currently no full time employees acting as Webmasters or anything, and I don't think there ever will be, don't beleive there is the money in the internet in the short term. There are plenty of volunteers who pour huge amounts of time into the site, but it isn't what is classifed by the term 'full time'. I have always thought that these sites would just be run for fun more than anything. Unfortunately with any site that gets to a large size, there are increases in costs, and demands from the readers. Revenue has to come from somewhere to ensure the site has a host, and then funds need to go into other things like web design programs, developing scripts and so on. Also, what is the real deal with the LWOS/Matt O feud. (not so much personal details) I know the website split, but I was just wondering, are you guys friends/enemies outside the cyber world. Their seems to be some strong feelings which go beyond him deleting a few posts and bad mouthing a website (or maybe I am too old and not up with the marriage of the Cyber community and the Real world. No comment. Sorry guys, but the facts had to be straightened out. There are no Millionaires or anything funding Rleague.com.

 

[El Duque]

Storm, what happened at Grandstand?

I was trying to read your annoncement about an independent site and then the whole 7's forum vanished and it's still gone.

 

[Willow]

"Sorry guys, but the facts had to be straightened out. There are no Millionaires or anything funding Rleague.com. "
Thanks for the input mate. I dont think anyone was suggesting that there are Millionaires at rleague. But if there was, good luck to them.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

It seems that a few of the LWOS faithful have been confronted with this site when trying to access the Grandstand lately.
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0TQDeAnIYLdK7Ur6FE9aTslFXFjFoHB6MLBuElmCcmZHBImfsZCmI*tj0K!tybQCpHnmbOqtIsUYKcspgcdZMraaiE*6oA6PjESVIEnoD4WLhLDV6b1p!aQ/WORLbanning.jpg?dc=4675412464355320537
Language, MSN.... tsk, tsk, tsk.

 

[imported_E_A__]

lol Like that one.

If I saw that every time I was banned from WORL, I probably wouldn't mind.