Finding sports video online is not too difficult.  Finding a site where all the sports video is originally produced is.  Reel Sports Fan was created in September of 2007 by Brian Franzman and two partners in an attempt to provide fans the opportunity to post their own unique video programming.

In speaking with Franzman, he makes it clear that Reel Sports Fan is not intended to be a You Tube copy cat…but rather an alternative sports video destination, filled with content of national, regional, and local interest.  Here’s our conversation…

SMJ: How did you come up with the concept of Reel Sports Fan?

B.F.: Actually this came about late in the year 2006. It was about the time Google bought You Tube, and everyone was talking about user-generated content.   So that was in my mind at the time.  I happened to see one particular sportscast that I just thought was horrible.  And I was beside myself as a sports fan saying ‘These are professionals, and this is what they come up with?’.  So it was with those two things in mind in mind where I thought, Why isn’t there a fan network?  Why isn’t there a place where fans can put their passion for their sports and their team and their creativity together and produce interesting content about sports?  And that’s where the idea came from.

SMJ: How difficult was it to create a sports fans’ You Tube if you will?

B.F.: One of the differences between a You Tube and us is that we produce a lot of content for the site. Whereas You Tube doesn’t produce anything.  They merely act as a gathering place for people to produce and view stuff.   There’s a big difference there between what we do and what You Tube does.  Just getting the word out to people is a challenge.  With the Internet and viral marketing and social marketing it makes it easier to spread the word inexpensively.  Slowly but surely we’re making a name for ourselves.  We’re getting linked on Awful Announcing, we’re getting linked on Deadspin.  We get linked fairly often on Neil Best’s blog on Newsday.com.  We did an event earlier this year where we hosted a screening of Don Larsons’ perfect game here in New York, so we got a lot of good publicity out of that.  In turn people find out about you and are likely and willing to produce some content of their own and upload it onto the site.

SMJ: What do you produce for the site?

B.F.: A lot of what we’ve done so far has been interviews.  Through one way or another we’ve managed to get interviews with quite a good list of people.  Sometimes they have something to promote, so they’re very eager to do interviews.  In the past year we’ve had one-on-one interviews with Mike Richter, Jim Boeheim, Harry Carson…we got Andre Agassi a few months ago.  In certain instances we’re being treated like the media.  When someone has a big event and they invite various media members, we’re being included.  We’re on the red carpet with all of the rest of the media.  In that regard it’s really kind of cool, that we’re part of the media, although we don’t think of ourselves in that regard just yet.

SMJ: Is there a hope that you will be able to get access to some of the NY Teams?

B.F.: It might.  I think our goal before that is to have regular programming that we can control, as opposed to being beholden to access from a team.  Some of the things we’re looking at doing are; some talk shows in the same way that Pardon the Interruption does on ESPN, or some roundtable discussion shows.   We actually have had a brief discussion with a national sportscaster, somebody who is very well known, about hosting a talk show for us.  It’s very much in the early stages and a lot can happen but I have my fingers crossed because that would be really cool.

SMJ: Tell us about how the fan interaction works and how you outreached to fans to upload their own sports videos.

B.F.: I think we need to do a better job of that.  We need to let people know that we exist and  that we’re a place that they can upload.  We’ve gotten so focused about producing content ourself that we’ve let that part of it slide a little bit.  We post on message boards all the time. We promote the stuff we produce and let people know that we’re an outlet where they can produce some things for themselves.  We covered a sportscasting camp this summer where we got good content for the site, but we also got the opportunity to talk to the kids and say “Here’s a great place for you guys to try this stuff out.”  We’ve also struck a deal with the student TV Station at Syracuse.  They already produce content for the station.  Then they take pieces and upload it to the site.

SMJ: What has the response been from the people who have uploaded material to the site?

B.F.: In general I think people have been pretty positive.  Especially these days when everyone is looking for a little few minutes of fame… they want to get their opinion out there.  That’s why I think message boards and blogs are so popular because everyone has an opinion want wants to express it.  With this it takes a little more work.  You have to take the time to shoot something, to edit it, to possibly team up with other people to get something produced.  It’s a bit more of a process, but in general I think we’re getting a really good response.

SMJ: You have some pretty strict restrictions concerning things like copyright so as to not have it fall into the category of a You Tube…

B.F.: It serves a few purposes…if you see something cool on ESPN and want to share it with everybody, that’s what You Tube is for.  From our point of view we want everything to be original on our site.  There are some highlights from our relationship with Rare Sports Films…but our goal from the beginning is to make this a site where everything would be originally created.  We didn’t want to deal with the legal hassles of having someone trying to sue us because we put their content up on our site.

SMJ: What other ways are you trying to market the site to get more participation?

B.F.: Actually, here’s where You Tube does come in handy. One of the things we do now is we try to post as much of our content as possible on the big video sharing sites.  We know that they already have a huge audience.  So you create channels on the You Tubes of the world and you spread your content around.  You put your bug on there, you put your web address so people know where the content comes from and you hope word spreads about you.  We’re getting listed in blogrolls…that helps.  But I think in the end, having new, quality content every single day is what’s going to really expand our viewership.

SMJ: In the year or so since the site’s launch, how have your expectations been met?

B.F.: There are some days our expectations have gone above and beyond.  Then there are other days when we say we have plenty of room to go.  When you start from scratch and have nothing, and you get to this point, where you have somewhat of a following, and your numbers are growing every month, it’s exciting.  Then on the flip side we say “Hey, we should be doing way, way better.”  So that’s why there’s that constant push from our end to create new and unique content as often as possible.

SMJ: Do you think that with the You Tubes and Blip.TV’s of the world you have a niche product that will succeed?

B.F.: That is our hope.  That fact that everything on our site is original, I think is important.  The fact that we’ve honed in on one particular aspect, everything you are going to find with us is sports related. Obviously there will be some limits because you are strictly focused on sports. But I think if you get those rabid fans, there’s plenty of people who can help us build the site.

SMJ: What are your short-term expectations going forward?

B.F.: A big thing we’re working toward in the next year that we want to have happen is to have regular programming for every day of the week.  We want of have fresh content every single day.  That will come in different forms.  Whether it’s a talk show or something else.  We actually launched another site.  It’s called Sports Video Daily.com and it’s basically this day in sports history with video.  We find video from an event that took place this date in history and we link to it.  For the most apart it is the opposite in terms of content production from our main site.

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The mission of Reel Sports Fan is an ambitious one.  The choices of where to post video content is vast, and growing each day.  But Franzman and the others at Reel Sports Fan may have a product that is just niche enough to succeed.