OSN’s own Dancenham and BP did a “Virtual” Interview with Mike Sroka, CEO of E-Global Sports Network, and CEO of OneSeason.com to discuss the market, Vinny, splits, and more. It’s basically a Q&A session, but we tried to make it fun for OSN. We hope you enjoy!
Bullpup: Mike! Thanks for virtually sitting down with us today! It’s been some time since we’ve talked to you, How have you been? How have things been going for you guys?
Mike: Thanks for having me guys! Well, the Cubs are not going to make the playoffs and the Bears looked brutal last weekend but otherwise things are good. It is great to be back in the fall sports season!
Dancenham: Yep, Fantasy Football is in full swing. Speaking of that, we’ve seen an interview with Ronnie Lott and now know has his own Fantasy Football advice site, ronnielottfantasyfootball.com. Have you been in contact with him recently? Is he more than just a name on the advisory board? Is there any involvement between his new site, and OneSeason?
Mike: Ronnie is on our Advisory Board which meets about every 6 weeks and he has been great. As you may know, he has strong relationships with the big networks, leagues and player associations. He has also been involved with a number of start-up’s and is very knowledgeable about operating early-stage companies. I think that the site you mentioned is actually part of CBS Sports which is one of the big networks that Ronnie has been working with. He has also done a lot of stuff with Fox Sports. We do not currently have any announcements relating to OneSeason working with the other companies that Ronnie is associated with.
Bullpup: Mike, regarding the social networking aspect that seems to be the phenomea of the internet lately…Heck, that term has even been used in a new Fosters Beer commercial, and we now know how australians do social networking…Do you guys run your own OneSeason twitter pages The NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and onseasoncom ones? How about MySpace and Facebook?
Mike: Boy are you right about the social networks growing like crazy. Facebook is nearing 300 Million users and the highest growth has been occurring in the core Fantasy Sports demographic (30 – 55 year old Males). We are managing all of our social media including the Facebook and Twitter pages here in our San Francisco office.
Dancenham: Mike speaking of facebook and things of that nature.. I know that creating a community via Facebook is one of your strategies right now. the only on-line community that i have ever been apart of is OSN.. no Facebook, no MySpace, noMatch.com.. For users that have been looking for a straight up sports based stock market like myself, should we be concerned about the current state of OneSeason?
Mike: No, I don’t think you should be concerned. We view Social Networks, Mobile devices, etc. as access points and distribution channels which are in no way mutually exclusive with a destination site or other 3rd party communities. What I mean by this is that there are a ton of folks on Facebook and it is really easy and comfortable for them to interact there. Mobile devices allow people to access functionality where they want, when they want it. We are trying to get OneSeason out to as many people as possible in an efficient way and allow folks to participate from whatever community/platform they feel most comfortable. Now, I notice you included Match.com in the question and I would add that you should be concerned if OneSeason ever offers dating features!
Bullpup: Well Hammy is getting married in less than a month, so I don’t think he’d have a use for that feature. Rockman though? I think he’d definitely benefit from some dating features on OneSeason. He has been trying for months to hook up w/ Slubs32 via the OSN forums…But also, with regards to facebook, we’ve seen a LOT of attention and focus being put on Vinny’s Sports Book recently. Is Vinny’s Sports Book, to you guys, a sizeable piece of the makeup of E-Global Sports Network? Or is it just for fun? It seems to me that looking at the 19,000,000 users monthly applications on facebook such as Mafia Wars has…Vinny has a huge profit potential for e-Global Sports network from the little free offers people fill out to get more chips.
Mike: We built Vinny’s to create distribution for ourselves (OneSeason) and because we want it to exist. It is a great way for us to develop a relationship with tons of sports fans (very targeted audience coming to us) and make them aware of the OneSeason services. As a free service on a large social network it can grow like crazy organically which we have encouraged our users to help us seed and is also a lot of fun.
Bullpup: I gotcha, that makes sense, and to follow that up…is CRV’s investment we heard about months back..was that an investment in E-Global Sports Network? Meaning CRV has ties to Vinny as well? Or is CRV’s involvement only with theOneSeason.com site?
Mike: CRV’s investment is in E-Global Sports Network which is the owner and operator of our branded destination websiteOneSeason.com. CRV shares our excitement for the opportunity in building text-based social games for sports fans and specifically the concept of a real-time trading system.
Bullpup: Also on this point…some folks are spending calculating commissions for OneSeason and saying there is no way OneSeason can survive on the revenue they are generating. Is OneSeason.com itself, just a small piece of the puzzle that makes up the e-global sports network? Is that situation like analyzing Fruit of the Loom and upon seeing that it’s generating no revenue, proclaim that Berkshire Hathaway will be bankrupt in a matter of days?
Mike: I really don’t think it is appropriate for private companies to discuss the details of their financial operations but since the whole world seems to spend every day speculating on the financial viability of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. I will try to answer as best I can. OneSeason is not currently operating profitably or at break even. Very few start-up’s are able to achieve this in the first few years of operation if ever. Unlike some of the companies mentioned above, OneSeason has had a revenue model from day 1 which has proven to be effective, the question is if we can create something that is compelling for a broad audience (Model + Scale = Success).
Dancenham: Mike, with regards to Fantasy Tycoons…Do you have any changes planned for the NFL version of Tycoons besides implementing position spots (if that’s even in the works). Right now it seems to be a little dry and there’s no incentive for me to play. Legends - if ya have an answer cool, if not no need to respond. Are we any closer to a Legend Based Tycoon Game?
Mike: Yes, we are working on some additional features to Fantasy Tycoons and think that being able to see other rosters and having cross-sport leagues are high priority. Incorporating Legends into Fantasy games is quite difficult because there cannot be pay to play options due to legal constraints related to skill-based gaming.
Bullpup: We definitely need something for Legends. And how about teams? You mentioned a few months ago that we could expect teams to be coming back as available SOIs. Any more news on this topics? Are teams coming? Or are they on hold again?
Mike: We are still waiting to get more depth before moving into Teams or additional sports. It seems like having more, closely comparable things is the most interesting rather than spraying wide and shallow.
Dancenham: I have a problem spraying wide and shallow often, but going back to E-Global Sports Network Besides the projects that we are currently aware of (OS, Vinny, Tycoons), are there any others in the works that would spark interest for your current user base?
Mike: We really can’t talk about any potential future functionality but are working hard to build this company the best way we know how.
Bullpup: Alright, and speaking of the company, and the centerpiece of it all, the trading platform.. What about the market itself? We have lots of folks who have just become disheartened watching their values of their sportfolios dwindle, day by day. Someone pointed out recently that If you bought $2500 in OS SOI’s on 1/1/09, you’d have $1327 in SOI’s right now. If you did it on 1/14/09, you’d have $415. January 1st is coming, and deposits will be reset and some are on the fence as to why they would put in more money, considering the numbers we just heard. Could you give us some thoughts behind the markets performance this year so far, and what users should be paying attention to, or learning from this right now?
Mike: For clarity, OneSeason is the platform. We do not have any involvement in the price or movements of SOI’s. When users achieve gains or losses that comes from other users and the ability to navigate a dynamic marketplace. Additionally, OneSeason is built for fun and entertainment. It is a place for sports fans to interact and express themselves as well as display their allegiances and sports knowledge. Our hope is that it provides a LOT of hours of excitement and enjoyment connecting people with similar interests.
Dancenham: Mike we’ve also seen a lot of posting about reverse splits and There has been some grumbling about what actually triggers a r/s. Can you either deny or confirm the rumors that the algorithm behind splits has changed recently.
Mike: Splits and Reverse Splits allow the system to scale up and down as necessary to be appropriate given recent trading activity. In order to prevent attempts to force these actions in situations where they may not have occurred naturally we moved to a system based on a SOI weighted average for a period of time (not specified) prior to closing. With wide variances in trading volume, spreads in open orders, trading activity and the related flags we created for suspicious activity, we are constantly looking to improve our systems to best achieve the goals. Splits and Reverse Splits do not change the percentage of ownership or Total Value so I’m not sure why some folks get excited about this. If something is trading outside of the specified range $0.75 - $20.00 then it may get split or reverse split.
Bullpup: Confirm or Deny! Reminds me of that new PS3 commercial. I think we have several people saying what you just said about splits not mattering Mike, and others saying that reduced supply will help stabilize the market and find a true bottom. We’ll have follow up discussion on this from OSN for sure. Mike, where are we with the site being almost exactly a year old. Where is it now, from where you envisioned it when you created it? We know you mentioned a long time ago that the site was 25% complete, and you’ve also said that it will never be 100% complete. Where are we with it today, in the grand scheme of things?
Mike: It is crazy thinking back to October last year when we launched the site. It seems like so much has happened since then but the time has flown by. Since last fall we have gotten the platform stabilized, the user interface is much more intuitive, we have some great new applications and there is a whole ecosystem of 3rd party sites built around our start-up. We still have plenty of work to do but there is a solid foundation in place. Most importantly, we really need to improve the social nature of participation on the system and keep opening it up so other developers can build on top of it. Finding creative ways to make people aware of our services and community as well as facilitating a great experience for both old pros and newbie’s is also top of mind. We have a very small team and have bitten off quite a bit but I could not be prouder of the job everyone is doing and am excited to continue the adventure.
Dancenham: Mike, I have one more question..how concerned are you about state of mind for your current user base? Is it more of juggling around ideas to keep both new users and current users happy? Would you be concerned if all your current users just up’d and left?
Mike: We want more than anything to create something that a lot of people like. We have benefited from and appreciate all the feedback that we get. The end of your question goes without saying, our success is measured by sports fans having fun.
Bullpup: We definitely are into having fun. Mike, thanks for your time today in doing a virtual sitdown w/ OSN. We appreciate the time out of your busy day. Tell DJ and the rest of the team hi for us.
Mike: Thanks guys! DJ said something about the Seahawks which always comes out my other ear as blah, blah, blah. Talk to you soon!
Bullpup: The Bears suck. Thanks Mike!
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There will be plenty of follow up and discussion about this “virtual interview” in the forums, If you aren’t part of the forums, feel free to post follow ups or questions here, and we’ll get them to Mike for a future Q&A session.
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