Though PFT won’t celebrate its first decade of existence until November 1, 2011 (we’ll have plenty of time to bake a cake and blow out the candles if there’s a lockout), this site never would have existed but for something that happened on June 27, 2000.
On that day, this hobby turned part-time job turned full-time job turned every-waking-moment (at times) obsession officially launched.
The debut came on the pages of the long-defunct sportsTALK.com, and specifically at its copyright-infringing subsidiary known as NFLtalk.com. (Actually, NFLtalk.com currently is live, and they’re running links to PFT stories as the top-of-page news feed.)
Jason Peery and Chad Ford “hired” me (i.e., we’ll post your stuff and pay you nothing) to write an op-ed item twice per week. Despite the lack of financial compensation, I was trying at the time to attract interest in the product of a multi-year side project known as Quarterback of the Future, and I concluded that, if I could get some quasi-real writing credentials, maybe I could sell it.
Like so many things in life, the intended destination became obscured by an unexpected (and far more rewarding) journey.
In May 2001, sportsTALK.com ran out of cash. ESPN.com bought the carcass and shifted the multi-sport rumors and news format to its Insider service. John Taylor (not the 49ers receiver or the Duran Duran bassist but the curator of CFT) had been running the NFLtalk.com Rumor Mill. During the period of uncertainty at sportsTALK he landed a gig with RealTeam.com, which former Saints exec Terry O’Neil apparently funded with his post-Ditka buyout. O’Neil declined to let Taylor out of his contract to run the NFL section of the sportsTALK/Insider project. And so yours truly was offered the job.
Applying the “don’t ask/don’t tell” approach to the fact that I was also practicing law on a full-time basis, I worked from 5:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. on each weekday’s rumor page, and then I spent from 11:00 a.m. until whenever taking care of the law practice. Since each submission went through multiple layers of editorial oversight, the project lacked the kind of immediacy that has become a critical aspect of Internet operations. In October 2001, I had to decide whether to sign a one-year deal with ESPN.com (I still have the unsigned contract) -- or whether to try to rekindle the spirit and attitude of the old NFLtalk.com with a new site. Since the law practice was paying the bills, I could afford to choose the path that resulted in three years or so of zero dollars a month plus benefits, babe.
I didn’t make a dime for at least two or three years, I nearly called it quits in September 2002 after concluding I’d never make much more than lunch money at this thing, and then once Sprint became our primary sponsor in early 2006 everything changed.
Then, the NBC partnership launched last July, and everything really changed.
In the end, however, it’s all pretty much the same. Same content (only a lot more of it), same attitude, same hit-or-miss attempts at humor. But PFT wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t gotten that zero dollar a month plus benefits gig with sportsTALK.com in June 2000.
We’ve noticed from time to time debates regarding the identity of the pioneers of the Internet sports industry. Rarely, if ever, does anyone mention Peery and Ford, who still works as an NBA insider for ESPN.
Without question, they were the first to do successfully that which so many others are doing with varying degrees of success today -- the coverage of sports via a computer and a dial-up connection. Years before the dreadful term “blog” migrated into the widespread consciousness, Peery and Ford provided independent coverage of major-league sports via the Internet, and what we do now continues to echo the spirit of what they started in the late ‘90s, and what they gave me a crack at doing as of ten years ago today.