New site editor Jonathan Comey caught up with founder Neil Hornsby a couple of weeks back and asked him a few questions about the changes at ProFootballFocus.com. We thought we'd put it back in prime real estate in case you missed it.
Jonathan: Hey Neil, there’s a lot of change here … what’s the rationale? Why have you done this?
Neil: Well it’s really based around on three main ideas:
First, people told us they loved our stats but we simply weren’t producing enough articles. There’s a load of people who don’t like to just read stats and we weren’t doing enough for them.
Second, a large percentage of people who visit the site are fantasy players and we wanted to do a lot more for that group.
And bottom line, we needed to survive. Last year was very successful for us, but it also put a lot of us in a financial hole. We had to generate some revenue to allow us to both continue and keeping developing and refining what we do.
Jonathan: OK, so let’s take each of those in turn. What more will you be doing by way of articles?
Neil: We want to do about 10-20 times as many as we’ve done previously. We averaged about 1 a week last year … that’s pretty embarrassing. That’s not to say we were lazy, we worked our butts off watching games and when we were finished that week we just about had time to have a coffee before we were off again onto the next week's batch.
Jonathan: You'd never make it as a coach — haven't you heard that there are no excuses in football? What’s different this year?
Neil: (laughs) We’ve got a lot more people doing players participation, which allows more time on the analysis side of things and for everyone to write more. It was quite frustrating at times last year as there was a load of interesting stuff to say but no time to say it. We'll have reports on every game, a weekend primer, power rankings and plenty more.
Jonathan: The offseason was a bit spotty as well …
Neil: Most of us had effectively taken a 4 month unpaid sabbatical during the season, so we had to work real jobs. Personally, I was back on the supermarket checkout line dreaming of Mel Kiper.
Jonathan: Can I get a price check on canned peas?
Neil: OK, maybe my day job isn’t in a supermarket. But the bit about Mel Kiper is for real. How can I get my hair to look that way?
Jonathan: Try egg whites … hey, aren't you forgetting one key part of PFF's new world order?
Neil: No, I think that’s pretty much it.
Jonathan: I mean like getting a hardcore, award-winning football journalist on board to teach you how to join a few sentences together?
Neil: This is you, I take it?
Jonathan: (feigns modesty) Well, since you bring it up, I've been a member of the credentialed NFL media (one of the good ones) since 1998, I'm the owner of several writing awards that save money on wallpaper, and I'm more or less awesome.
Neil: So why are you slumming with us?
Jonathan: I've been analyzing football through stats my whole career, but until I started reading your stuff I didn't know how much of what I was doing was just guesstimation. I love the stats you produce and wanted to be a part of it. But hey, I'm asking the questions here. Let’s move on; you mentioned fantasy football.
Neil: I get so many mails from fantasy guys telling me how much they use the site that it’s verging on rude not to do more for them. The problem is, our core team doesn’t play at all. We knew we needed to look out for this audience, but none of us felt remotely comfortable talking about stuff we didn’t understand. That’s why we’ve got together with Kevin Greenstein and Mike Clay to produce “PFF FANTASY”.
Jonathan: PFF FANTASY … Neil, why don’t you tell me more about PFF FANTASY and how PFF FANTASY is going to do more for our PFF FANTASY fans? And why is it ALL CAPS!?
Neil: Well, its going to be great, it’s got lots of … drafts … and rounds … and numbers … and stuff. Mike’s pulled together a league for us and we draft tonight. I just can’t decide if I’m going to take Joe Thomas or Nick Mangold first.
Jonathan: Maybe I'd better have a chat with Kevin and Mike for more there.
Neil: That might be a good idea.
Jonathan: So you also went subscription. What was the thinking there? Just felt like breaking the hearts of football shut-ins everywhere?
Neil: Whether I like it or not, we have to generate revenue to simply survive. The only way our model works and retains credibility is by using a small number of well trained, knowledgeable people to do the analysis. There’s a quote I believe in completely that says “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” To make sure the numbers are as accurate as they can be, we need full-time people to do the work. You can’t do this type of stuff in a couple of hours a night and hope to get meaningful advanced stats never mind consistent grades. We have to pay the few people who do this full-time.
Jonathan: Well, what happened last year?
Neil: I paid them.
Jonathan: Oh, good, so you're independently wealthy. One more go-round for old time’s sake?
Neil: Last year I ran up a bigger debt than Equatorial Guinea. Unless you know a psychic that's good with lottery numbers, it's subscription or bust.
Jonathan: What about advertising?
Neil: Well, they won’t cover anything like the costs we need. Plus I hate them. I don’t believe eating Acai berries is better than sex, and I don’t think there’s any way I can get a six pack in 2 months. If a football-related sponsor came along offering us a couple million, it'd be free stats for everyone. But until then …
Jonathan: So you need to charge or you cease to exist.
Neil: Yes, but I want us to do more than just survive. We want to improve what we do and provide a whole host of different stats and ways of accessing them for our readers to use.
Jonathan: I'm biased, but I think $90 is a fair price. (See our sales pitch for 50 reasons why $90 is the best bargain since discounted sliced bread)
Neil: Nobody produces the detailed data we do, so there are no real comparisons, but if you take it down a level, perhaps to the sites that do some additional analysis, we're much more competitive in terms of unique data. We were quoted $3.5K per year by one company for not much more than is readily available, free of charge, on NFLGSIS.com. Another site was simply taking .csv files from there, sticking them in an excel spreadsheet with some formula (probably an hour's work a week) and charging over $600 for it. We spend more than 300 hours a week on data gathering alone, and produce information that no one else does. For less than $2 a week, I think that’s great value.
Jonathan: What if people agree it's a good value but simply can’t afford it?
Neil: First, all of the articles and features are going to be free, enough to at least whet the appetite for what we have. You don't get the seven-course meal, but at least it's an appetizer. And for those who are both really broke and really into it, join our team! We’ve got vacancies left for numerous team correspondents, and as long as they commit to doing one game of player participation a week, we’ll give them a free subscription. You can get more details of what’s involved here … and contact us about joining up here.
Jonathan: Sounds good. I'll let you get back to your windowless basement to look at football film for 10 hours without human interruption or interaction.
Neil: Just how I like it. Cheers.
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