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Soccerly.com, a new U.S. soccer site featuring user-generated content

Content

A new soccer news site called soccerly.com has just been launched in San Diego, California. The site focuses on the U.S. market, where the passion for soccer has gradually grown. The site’s notable feature is that, using a single platform, users can instantly become “sports journalists.”
The founder of soccerly.com is Miguel Ramirez Lombana, who along with Patricio Villalobos was one of the creators of mediotiempo.com, which is now part of Grupo Expansión. Ramirez Lombana tells Portada the “ambitious plan” is to create a “leading soccer property” in the U.S. market.
“Soccer is the fastest growing sport in the United States at the fan level. [The fan base] is still smaller than that of football or other sports, but that is precisely why it has much more room to grow,” says Ramirez Lombana. “We see an opportunity to create an exclusive soccer property for this market, since most major sports sites in the U.S. do not give soccer a prominent place.”
Sportswriters 2.0

Soccerly seeks to become the leading open platform for the creation of football-related multimedia content. On January 17, the site launched a number of simple, user-friendly tools for visitors to post notes, pictures and videos.

To date, 80 percent of the site’s visitors have been from the U.S. and 20% from Europe and Latin America.

Our goal is to capture the U.S. market, since it offers the particular feature and great advantage of rooting for several teams, such as Galaxy, Barcelona, and the U.S. national team, because they are all from different leagues

So far, the site has had a good response from emerging sportswriters and fans of the sport, which have been sending in their own content. The soccerly staff reviews incoming content for plagiarism, accuracy, typos, etc., says Ramirez Lombana.

“Most of the copy that we’ve received has been very good and we’ve rejected very few items; only a few have been returned for some corrections. In the first four days after going live, we received an average of 25 items a day. And the number is sure to grow with time,” he noted.

“Why write for Soccerly?” asks the new site. The response: “Anyone can report and express their ideas about their favorite sport, adding their own touch and views while engaging in a solid and straightforward discussion.” Technology is the boss in this platform, write the site’s creators.

Within five days of its launch, the site has already garnered 1,600 followers on Facebook. The Soccerly team consists of 19 people in San Diego and also has development offices in Mexico City.

“The goal is to attract significant traffic; this is a soccer year because it is the one prior to the World Cup in Brazil and we have all the qualifiers, the Confederations Cup and there is also the European league,” says Ramirez Lombana. “Unlike other World Cups, it will now be much easier to see the soccer matches from almost anywhere. The market has changed. In America there is a growing soccer market and brands are beginning to recognize this sports fan that perhaps had not really been noticed before.”

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Mercadotecnia: Fútbol escrito por los usuarios

Translated by Candice Carmel

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