It’s not too often here at LBS that we sit back and reflect on some of our achievements and accomplishments, but today is a different story. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the first post ever being published at LBS.
Yes, back on Jan. 5, 2007, I wrote a story about the Maple Leafs beating the Bruins badly, and capped it off with what I felt was a cheeky title at the time, “Maple Leafs outscore the Raptors.” I was so clueless about blogging at the time that the story, despite being about hockey, was categorized as “baseball,” since that’s the only category that had been created. The slug for the title of the post is even “hello world” and numbered “1,” making it the first official post ever at LBS.
The site first started as an outlet for me to voice some of my opinions and thoughts, as I was dissatisfied with my work behind the scenes in sports radio and felt I had more to offer. After a few months, LBS began morphing into the sort of site full of entertaining viral-type stories you see now.
Initially a one-man operation for the first 3-4 years, expansion began early in 2010, with the addition of Steve DelVecchio and a few other writers. Del began working for the site getting paid — I kid you not — $50 per month. He stuck with it for several months despite not being paid much (yes, his wage did increase), and he later became full-time by the end of 2011.
By the fall of 2010, the radio company I had been working for moved from LA to Houston, and I chose not to be a part of the move. Instead, I set out to work on LBS full-time, determined that I could turn it into something.
The first year was rough, but we made enough to live off of, and then we took the chance hiring Del on full-time a year later. We haven’t looked back since.
There have been tons of ups and downs. Web traffic and ad revenue are volatile. The technology is always changing. So is the news cycle. To stay on top of things, you have to be around nearly all the time — nights, weekends and holidays included.
It’s not easy.
But the reward of being able to do something you enjoy every day beats everything.
We have gone from being a 1-man operation to having six members of the LBS team. We’re proud of that.
We don’t know what the future holds, but we hope to still be pumping out sports news for you to consume another 10 years from now, even if it’s being read on your VR headset.
Thank you to everyone who has written and continues to write for the site; thank you to everyone who has read and continues to read the site; and thank you to everyone for your support. And thank you to my man #21 Nevil Vega, who inspired me to create this 10 years ago.
