I Meet ZoneAdmin and ZoneManager
Sure, the ESPNZone was crawling with semi- and three-quarter and nearly-almost-full-fledged celebrities today, from Jim Larranaga to Smokin' Al Koken to WTOP's dulcet-throated Byron Kerr. Plus, John Feinstein. But to me, the clear highlight was meeting the men known as ZoneAdmin and ZoneManager, the co-founders of what was once known as MasonHoops.com.
The people who run these sometimes-obscure fan boards for far-out-of-the mainstream teams are their own breed, for sure. I've gotten to know the unstoppable "Herve" from GWHoops.com, which is the undisputed gathering spot of Colonials basketball fans, but I'm only now wading into the world of people-who-avoid-doing-work-by-reading-and-writing-about-CAA-sports. And ZoneAdmin (Chris Metsala) and ZoneManager (David Pierpont) are chief among them.
(Plus, they have good t-shirts. "There's no NCAA without the CAA!" the t-shirts say." Of course, there's also no NCAA without AA, but that's probably not as good on a t-shirt.)
So anyhow, the long-suffering Mason folks are probably familiar with the beginnings of this story, but I wasn't until today. Chris and Dave started MasonHoops.com back in the late '90s, with perhaps 15-20 hardcore Mason fans joining up. The MasonHoopers spent much of the early years complaining about the media and sending blast e-mails to local television stations, asking if perhaps they could include the GMU scores in their nightly rundowns. Not highlights; scores. They also were out front of some Internet trends; by 2002 or so, they were covering games and posting full audio transcripts of post-game press conferences on their site.
And the community grew, eventually including fans of other CAA teams. So, naturally, expansion came next. ZM and ZA thought they'd try to encompass all the D.C. teams, and so sometime around 2001 they launched DCMetroHoops.com, trying to appeal to GW and Georgetown and Maryland people. (Interestingly, no one mentions American in this context, or in any context, really. And, as an aside, the Eagles should be good this year. Plus, at least one person close to the program is a regular reader of this blog. Are there any other American fans out there? Anyone?)
Anyhow, the DCMetroHoops thing didn't really take off, and with their pre-existing ties to other online CAA folks, ZM and ZA decided to try the league-wide approach, under the name CAAZone.com. Eventually they merged with the JMU fan site, DukesDomain.com, and also with the VCU site, RamFanZone.com. (Any readers who'd like to correct my chronology, feel free.) And everything kept growing steadily, until last March, when things stopped growing steadily and began growing somewhat more quickly.
"Our hits went through the roof," ZA said.
"We thought we were gonna blow our servers up," ZM said. "The hosting company in California made us move to a different dedicated server."
Before Mason's Final Four run, the Zone was getting something like 40,000 unique visitors a month. Now, it's nearly 60,000. In March, they had something like 4 million unique page views. The site now has more than 5,000 registered members, and this June, a month when the Zone used to be almost entirely silent, they had 2.5 million unique page views.
These numbers are still extremely modest compared to the big boys. This site encompasses an entire 12-team league, and yet a large ACC school's fan board will do better numbers by itself. And many of the big boys have multiple sites; Maryland, obviously, has both TerrapinTimes (a Rivals site) and TerpTown (a Scout site). But the Zone folks have big plans for a new interface and better ways to distribute news. And while most Division I administrators seem to have feelings of somewhere between burning rage and seething hate toward "the chat rooms," as they call them, the CAA is sort of friendly-ish toward the Zone, at least in public. At league staff meetings, officials even suggest that various CAA news items should be posted onto the fan site.
"Are these the Zone guys?" asked a smiling Ron Bertovich, the CAA's deputy commissioner for basketball, as he approached us this morning.
"I have to say, he gets it, he understands the Internet is here to stay," ZM said of Bertovich.
"I don't know how to turn on a computer, but I know the Internet's important," Bertovich said. "And if we don't like what they write, we'll pull their credentials."
(He was joking.)
(In a final note, happy CAA officials note that this was, by far, the best-attended CAA media day in league history, complete with a combined seven reporters from the Wash Post and USA Today. Either the CAA is on the rise, today was a really slow news day, or Wash Post and USA Today reporters don't like to travel.)
(In another final note, JMU women's coach Kenny Brooks gave an address in which he talked about how much Mason's run helped his recruiting and his team's name recognition. For women's basketball at James Madison. Bizarre.)
(In the last final note, the Colonial is on-board with the lobbying-for-respect-and-postseason-bids campaign that every college hoops league is apparently embracing this month. The place mats at media day boast of the league's 75 televised games, and list each one individually. And several coaches are extremely well-versed in last year's RPI numbers, including Larranaga, who gave the final address of the day and again stressed that the CAA last year had six teams in the RPI's top 88.
"Last year was just the beginning," he said. Which I guess means multiple CAA teams will be in the Final Four this year, or maybe six CAA teams will be in the top 87 of RPI.)
By Dan Steinberg |
October 25, 2006; 3:23 PM ET
| Category:
College Basketball
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Posted by: Ma$on | October 25, 2006 3:05 PM
in addition....ODU sucks. hahahh
Posted by: Ma$on | October 25, 2006 3:08 PM
money write up Dan -- but I am partially offended by your comment of "people-who-avoid-doing-work-by-reading-and-writing-about-CAA-sports".
I mean, how else would we make it through the workday?!
Posted by: s_curl | October 25, 2006 3:10 PM
i am a loser
Posted by: s_curl | October 25, 2006 3:24 PM
great pub for ZA & ZM!
I heart Ma$on(fan) :) and hate Gunston
Go Mason!
Posted by: P8triotfan4life | October 25, 2006 3:40 PM
I am desperate for attention.
Posted by: s_curl | October 25, 2006 3:49 PM
The TerpTown boards pawn the noobs. The Suckboard is where it's at. Dan knows about it. Tell 'em, Dan.
I demand a blog entry about just the Maryland board.
Posted by: Terptown | October 25, 2006 3:53 PM
As someone who you will observe drinking much Hpnotiq again on Sunday, I must agree that TerpTown pawns other college sports boards. I personally enjoy our annual tourney-time visit to the Pacific boards :)
Posted by: Paul | October 25, 2006 4:11 PM
I enjoyed the Terp vs. Buffalo game threads personally.
Posted by: patriotpike | October 25, 2006 4:24 PM
Since I am the person who sent most of those e mails, although I dont recall being able to spell the word "pernicious," the flukey advance of George Mason through the NCAA tournament does nothing to negate the central point- that Temple Xavier, GW, UMass et al have nothing to fear from Radford and friends. My point is absolutely correct and Mr. Steinberg's analysis is totally absurd, as I stated last year. My central point was that his over reliance on the RPI, which is an abusdity in itself, is pathetic. I urged him to use his own common sense, but he refuses.
Posted by: Kim Eisler | October 25, 2006 5:26 PM
Hey Kim, thanks for writing, didn't think you'd find this. (And for the record, not that this matters, but you're the second male Kim to have posted on this blog, which is notable.)
These are my points.
1) Radford isn't in the CAA. I'm not sure if you're joking by mentioning them, but just for the record, they're in the Big South.
2) I can't believe no Mason people have yet responded to this, but it's absurd to say their advance was fluky. It was no more fluky than any other team going to the Final Four. Sure, they had two quasi-home games in D.C., but they also had to play their first-round game without a senior starter, and they also beat Michigan State, UNC and U-Conn. They weren't advancing by playing patsies. That U-Conn. team had four NBA players on it, and Mason took it to them.
3) I don't know about common sense, I guess. I know that I spent three months last winter watching A-10 teams and CAA teams, courtside, with my own two eyes, and that the team that most consistently impressed me was George Mason. Way before the NCAA tournament. I have editors here who could vouch for that. I specifically remember talking to one editor in January about just how good I thought George Mason was. Now the CAA had a lot of seniors last year; and the A-10 was having a weird down year; and sure, I'd expect the A-10 to have more postseason success this year than the CAA, all things being equal; and sure, I'd expect the A-10 to land better recruits year-in and year-out. But are the leagues closer now than they've ever been? Was the CAA actually better last year, or maybe two years in a row? I'd say yes. You, I guess, would say no.
Posted by: SportsBog | October 25, 2006 6:45 PM
You speak the truth, Dan! Let no one convince you otherwise!
Posted by: CLP | October 25, 2006 7:50 PM
The A-10 has historically been a stronger conference than the CAA, but the times, they are a changin'. UMass? Temple? Are Marcus Camby and John Chaney back? Check out a recruiting site to see how the young kids view those programs. They are "donezo"! If Karl Hobbs would stop interviewing for jobs, he could help build GW into a consistent Top 25 team. Xavier, St. Joe's, and possibly GW look to be the class of the A-10 going forward, but they have nothing on the top teams in the CAA when you look at the current teams/players and the level of recruits coming in over the next few years.
Kim, your parents did a very, very mean thing to you at a young age, but you can fix this. Go with a more masculine name, like Robin or Jesse.
Posted by: Larry Larranaga | October 25, 2006 9:43 PM
Kenny Brooks is one of the all-time greats. I could totally hear him saying that.
Posted by: Dan Z. | October 25, 2006 9:51 PM
rock on
Posted by: s_curl | October 25, 2006 10:11 PM
Let's hope he was joking about "Radford and friends"...he was joking right?!?!
Posted by: SuperPatriot | October 26, 2006 8:12 AM
Mason's run was "fluky"? Kim, please stop.
ZA and ZM have done a great job with "the boards". Thank you for giving them some pub.
Posted by: 10-4 Good Buddy | October 26, 2006 11:17 AM
Fluky?
No more fluky than the Terps championship. How did that work out for you? A couple of halfass trips to the NIT later, you guys should realize Gary reaps what he sows.
Posted by: Bill of Writes | October 26, 2006 11:36 AM
Dan you keep writing, let the others keep drinking that koolaid. Kim? Your really Billy Packer in disguise, right? Get over it Billy, we don't hate you anymore. (Well, less than we did, anyway). I guess those usless stats like wins over most of the recent national champions don't mean much.
Posted by: gmu hoopstr | October 26, 2006 3:08 PM
Ah, American. What other team in the DC area returns 99.7 percent of its offense from last season, including the league's rookie of the year and a second-team all-leaguer? None.
Wait, what other team in the country can say that? None.
The drought ends this year, folks.
Posted by: au-sid | October 27, 2006 7:30 AM
Ah, American. What other team in the DC area returns 99.7 percent of its offense from last season, including the league's rookie of the year and a second-team all-leaguer? None.
Wait, what other team in the country can say that? None.
The drought ends this year, folks.
Posted by: au-sid | October 27, 2006 7:31 AM
au-sid, took you long enough to show up. and you're by yourself. you can't scare up a single rabid AU fan to ask me for some coverage? the eagles are gonna be fierce. when's media day?
Posted by: SportsBog | October 27, 2006 8:02 AM
So, AU returns 99.7% percent of the offense from a team that put up 35 total points in a 40 point loss to Mason last year. Remember, 100% of nothing is still nothing.
Posted by: Bill of Writes | October 27, 2006 9:40 AM
Chris and Dave are the Rockstars of CAA News!
Posted by: *~*POPtart*~* | October 27, 2006 12:41 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
Let's hear it for the ZONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!