I am currently pondering the pros and cons of starting a 'pay' website
designed to offer daily/weekly analysis of American Football.  This
website would be geared towards 2 primary populations:  1)  The Avid
Fantasy Football'er and 2)  Those who gamble on football.

Of course, the above description is brief and non-descript, but most
likely, sufficient for purposes of the questions that I would like
answered...

1)  After I register a web domain, what types of fees will I incur
with finding a host for that domain?  Furthermore, what range of costs
am I looking at for hiring a person/company to design my website
(weekly upkeep as well)?

2)  It would be interesting to know how many people participate in
Fantasy Football worldwide.  Along those same lines, approximately
what percentage of those players pay for fantasy football advice?

3)  Are there any profit numbers available for sites that offer
betting tips/strategies for professional and collegiate sports (namely
football)?  If so, is that market currently growing or saturated?

4)  Because my website would be designed for providing tips and
betting advice, rather than actual betting, I'd like to have (on my
website) advertising from the numerous online gaming sites, which
would take these bets.  What can I expect to charge for advertising on
my website (again, a range of estimates would suffice)?

Please understand that this project is in it's infancy and there is
much work to do before I move forward, but the above questions MUST be
answered before I can begin to further advance the website. 
Furthermore, I am not looking for exact numbers in the above
questions, just estimates (and/or sources) to help me start crunching
the numbers.  Thus, whatever you can find will help me greatly.

I will tip based on the value, quality, and quantity of the
information that is provided in the answers given.  I thank you in
advance for your time.

---

Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 07 Oct 2003 05:35 PDT

Dear Wild General, 

You've asked several different questions. It is quiet possible that a
Researcher might be able to answer one of the questions but not
another. You would be best advised to post all of these questions as
separate questions.

<1. 
A basic web site costs between $200 - $300 for 2 to 3 pages. A site
with 5-20 pages will cost $500 - $2500. The more elaborate the site
the higher the cost. Hosting costs between $20 - $50 per month.
Although you can find hosting at a cheaper price it is often better to
pay a bit extra for a good quality, reliable service.
http://www.cvcwebs.com/101.htm
http://www.homebizbuzz.co.nz/article.php3?ArticleID=582

Maintenance costs vary from $10.00 per month to over $75.00 per month.

Visionsite provide free maintenance to your website if you host your
site with them. They also offer promotion services. The price is
decided on a case by case basis. You will need to send them details of
your requirements to get a quote.  
http://www.visionsitesolutions.com/pro/hosting/?f=maintenance
Contact details. 
http://www.visionsitesolutions.com/pro/index.asp?f=getstarted 
 
Iwantmyfreedomain.com offers website maintenance from $10 per month.
They also offer promotion services like keyword optimisation, link
popularity, directory submission and pay per click.
http://www.iwantmyfreedomain.com/maintenance.htm 
http://www.iwantmyfreedomain.com/serachengine.htm 
 
Silkwebs offer a site maintenance plan for £30 (approx $49) per month
and web promotion for £20 (approx $33) per month.
http://www.silkwebs.co.uk/acatalog/web_maintenance.htm
 
 
Jpeg Design offers website maintenance from $75.00 per month.
http://www.jpegdesign.com/new/solutions/website_maintenance.asp
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. According to Greg Ambrosius, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade
Association, there are at least 10 million fantasy football players in
the U.S. each spending an average of $120 on the hobby. This makes the
U.S. market worth $1.2 billion. The survey from Fantasy Football
Toolbox (see below) shows that participation in fantasy football is
97% U.S. based.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59706,00.html

The estimated market for Fantasy sports is about $1.8 billion this
year. There are an estimated 15.2 million fantasy sport players in the
U.S. They are mostly male, college-educated, white-collar workers in
their 30s.
http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-5061351.html

The major players 
Sportsline.com - $11 million.
Details of revenue for 2002 are given at
http://cbs.sportsline.com/info/ir/press/2002/fantfoot1002
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/special_packages/business_monday/6444946.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

The company lost $16.3 million in 2002 and $27.4 million in 2001.
http://www.paidcontent.org/pc/arch/2002_07_23.shtml

Yahoo 
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1

ESPN
http://games.espn.go.com/cgi/ffl/frontpage


-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. The sort of money can be made from a betting tips site can be
gauged from the success of FantasyGuru.com which is a subscription
based fantasy football tip giving site. It has over 10,000 subscribers
each paying $29.95 per season. Subscription generate over $299,500 in
revenue. http://www.fantasyguru.com/

Details of the success of Fantasy Guru.com are given in the
publication Selling Subscriptions to Internet Content Summit _ $97.
http://sherpastore.com/store/page.cfm/1950

KFFL.com provide sports news for fantasy football. It has tens of
thousands of subscribers paying between $12.99 and $49.99.
http://www.kffl.com/



The market is continuing to grow and looks to increase in future
years. According to Kim Beason, associate professor at the University
of Mississippi, there is strong growth in the number of games that
fantasy sports people are involved in.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/08/29/commentary/column_sportsbiz/sportsbiz/index.htm

According to Screen Digest, Sports sites could be internet’s most
lucrative heading for $15 billion a year value by 2005.
http://premium.screendigest.com/content/pyp_00-05b_forecasts.stml/view

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Sportsline – no rates shown on the website. 
ESPN – media kit (no rates shown).
http://espn.go.com/mediakit/advertising_espn/ad_specs.html

FantasyGuru.com does not accept advertising on its website. However
there are advertising opportunities in its print magazine.
http://www.fantasyguru.com/mediaonline.pdf

Advertising rates for Fantasy Football Toolbox are from 0.50 per
thousand views for buttons.
The user profile for Fantasy Football Toolbox is 97% US based. 70%
pland to spend over $25 on Fantasy Football and over a third plan to
spend over $100. On average they participate in 2.85 leagues.
http://www.fftoolbox.com/advertising.php

Fantasy Football operators are finding that they need to charge
subscriptions as advertising revenue is ‘miserable’.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956784.html?tag=fd_top



<Additional links:>
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association
http://www.fsta.org/>



<Search strategy:>

<"fantasy football" market million>
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22fantasy+football%22+market+million&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N>

<"fantasy sports trade association">
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22fantasy+sports+trade+association%22>

<"website maintenance services" "per month"> 
<http://www-sj.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22website+maintenance+services%22+%22per+month%22

<Hope this helps.>