It's a good site and I'm considering helping out, but I am not sure what exactly they're needing 10K for. Unless I really don't comprehend the cost of running a website.
He needs a new car, does it matter? The website is free to use, I suspect the revenue generated from adds is barely enough to pay the bills. So donations are encouraged to do more stuff with the site. If people like the site they can donate, if not or they are not able people do not.
I'm not thinking he's asking too much... more curious if this means he could pull in highlight footage or cool things like that.
Thanks for sharing and thanks to everyone who has donated so far. Inca asks a fair question. I listed many of the goals on the campaign page, but I'd be glad to answer any questions. The first thing the money is going toward is to create the website. We want the site to be top notch and I have a big wish list, so it could end up costing quite a bit. I'm trying to find the right person/company to put the website together. I'm planning to stick with Wordpress and after a little research, 'PageLines' seems to be the best fit for what we're trying to do. So if you know someone who designs websites and works with Wordpress, send them my way. The money is also going to go to help pay writers to cover the tournament. We want to get more people AT the games covering them, rather than just depending on twitter updates. We've had a lot of really good volunteers over the years, but our coverage could be even better if we were able to pay people. We are also planning to have a system in place that will allow for live stats for every game. Maybe even a mobile app to go along with that. This was already a difficult tournament to cover before, but now that the number of games has increased, we need all the help we can get. 16 games in one night all over the country, three weeks in a row (Rounds 1-3) is a lot to take on. We are also going to need help organizing and inputting historical information into the database, researching information, and then writing the stories that will populate all of our historical pages. The goal is to have complete box scores and stats for the entire Modern Professional Era (1995-present) with player/team stats, records, etc. If everything works out the way I envision it, you should be able to click on any team, go to the team's page where it will show year-by-year results, all-time stats ...everything you need to know. Then you should be able to click on any game to reveal the box score/match report. Then you could click on any player and see their all-time stats and Open Cup experience. This will be a useful resource for teams, fans and media alike. You mentioned video, and yes, video will also be a bigger part of the new site. Finding people to collect and edit the video costs money. Probably the biggest aspect is the ads, and this money will help create a quality site, which then we can hire someone to sell ads (something we don't have now), and then the site can pay for itself going forward. The ultimate goal would be to find someone to run the site for me, so I can focus on historical research, which takes up an incredible amount of time by itself. Any other questions/comments, feel free to drop me a line here or at http://thecup.us/contact-us/
and you are very welcome...now let's get a 501C3 non-profit status with the IRS so that I can give you even more!
The campaign was a big success (in my opinion) and the redesign is officially under way. Thanks to everyone who contributed. We're shooting for a May 1 launch. We'd love to get your input on the new site. Take our survey and let us know what you'd like to see: https://docs.google.com/a/icucmoder...uH4yq6MXFBlX_qJq_l8k1lRCdhSwqUnD9Uj4/viewform