Sports Unlimited

Intense sports fans have found their niche on the Internet, spending numerous hours on message boards defending their teams, trashing others and forming ''families.''

By ERNEST HOOPER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

TAMPA -- A year ago, Megan Sexton was a 19-year-old Crystal River receptionist who did not know the first thing about the Tampa Bay Lightning.

As far as she was concerned, hockey was hooey.

"I went (to my first game) kicking and screaming. I didn't want to go," Sexton said. "I just thought they were a bunch of overgrown goons. Then I went to the game and fell in love."

Sexton has found a favorite sport, a cache of new friends and a potential career largely because of the countless hours she has spent posting messages on Sunshine Network's Lightning message board.

Eager to learn more about the Lightning and hockey, Sexton said, she began soaking up all the information she could find. The message board, a collection of fan opinions and musings about the team's players, coaches and performances, proved to be a valuable source.

"That's how I learned everything, through the message board," Sexton said. "People would explain things I didn't understand. I also read the (Associated Press) wire and a lot of news stories in general.

"They accept me now," added Sexton about the people who regularly post on the boards. "They didn't accept me at first. Then they realized I spend five hours a day every day learning as much as I can about hockey."

In part because of the warm reception of her postings, Sexton has set her sights on becoming a sports writer to cover hockey full time.

The Internet has long been know as the super information highway, but for people like Sexton who immerse themselves in team-specific Web sites, chat rooms and message boards, it's also a portal to passion. No voices are heard, no faces are seen, but the emotion that fuels such sites is as evident as a broad smile or a grimace.

Call it heart drive.

Steve Spears, an online news editor for the Times' Web site, http://www.sptimes.com, does not actively monitor the message boards. But as moderator, he has a finger on the fans' pulse.

"The most emotional part of our Web site is Forums," said Spears, who noted that the message boards generate between 200,000 and 500,000 visits, or page views, a month, two to four times as many as the Times' Sports section.

"Ninety percent of Forums (page views) is sports and 90 percent of that is the Bucs message board. People on the Bucs board have personal things happen in their lives, and they're very comfortable sharing it online and talking about it. They have an interest in each other's personal lives and seem to care about each other."

Sarasota's Allison Geenen said the regulars on Sunshine's Lightning message board are "like family." Geenen, who got into hockey because her husband and daughter Kelly were fans, helped get the "family" together for a Lightning game against the Blackhawks last season.

For the first time, the posters got to match names and faces with the nicknames the people use on the message board.

"Sometimes it's a shock, and sometimes it's exactly how you pictured them to be," Sexton said. "You have a vision in your head and some people are the exact opposite of what you expected. Sometimes they're the exact image."

Tampa's George Johnson is a 38-year-old computer company owner who has met many of the friends he has made posting messages on various Bucs boards, including the sptimes.com one. At an NFL draft party in April, Johnson, a.k.a BucGeorge, met some fellow posters and later sold them laptops.

According to www.rivals.com, an infrastructure services company, a man and woman who met on the Los Angeles Kings message board decided to get married after meeting face-to-face. But for Johnson and others, the motivation is more than doing business, finding a mate or making friends. The message boards give them a chance to gain affirmation of their opinions.

"It's sort of like being on a debate team," Johnson said. "You want to compare notes. I guess people just want to share their feelings, their theories. Part of the appeal is being able to speculate on what the team is going to do, how are they going to handle the pressure."

For every opinion, there is a challenge. If you say the Bucs will beat the Packers on Christmas Eve or that NFL general managers would choose Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning over Green Bay's Brett Favre, you will get an almost immediate response.

The topics, opinions and retorts can get personal. One poster sought refuge on the Times' Bucs message board after being booted off Tampa Bay Online (www.tbo.com) for a vitriolic dispute with another poster.

Being right or wrong is not as significant as the emotion of the arguments regulars lodge. A thread (a series of posts on a specific subject) about the poster's banishment drew 104 posts in five days and filled three pages.

On moderated boards, postings often are a mix of strong opinions and good-natured teasing, or smack. The Bucs sites at sptimes.com and tbo.com have attracted about a dozen loyal Packers fans.

How has someone like Jerry "JJS" Sollazo, a Green Bay fan from Los Angeles, ended up frequenting Bucs boards in Tampa Bay?

"Being obnoxious helps," joked Sollazo, a registered investment adviser.

Looking to escape some of the "cheerleading" on the Packers site, Sollazo about three years ago looked at what the fans of the up-and-coming Bucs were saying. He has been posting since, serving as a perceptive commentator and an accepted annoyance.

"A hundred years ago, the only way we made friends was by being pen pals with them," Sollazo said. "The Internet is the 21st century version of pen pals.

"I get to interact with people all around the country, get a feeling and flavor of where they're coming from."

Displaced fans find the Internet as the best way to keep tabs on favorite teams.

"It's interesting to read the observations of people who live there and listen to the Tampa media," said 31-year-old Monica Windemaker, a self-described Army brat who developed an affinity for the Bucs when her parents lived in Brandon. She now lives in North Carolina.

"It seems the fans in the area have a stronger opinion than maybe the fans who don't have to listen to the radio shows. You tend to be more forgiving on some things when you don't have to listen to someone criticize the team every day."

Gatory Country, found at florida.rivals.com, is a classic example of the Internet's reach. The site, devoted to University of Florida sports, has received postings from Gators players and recruits, and relatives of players and coaches. On most sites, it's not uncommon for anonymous posters to leak "inside information," though the information may be inaccurate.

Gator Country spawned a Jacksonville-based weekly radio show. Hosted by Florida graduate Steve Manuel and sidekicks TermiGator and Gatorooski, the 2000 version of the show debuted Monday on WIOJ-AM 1010, a station of religious programming heard over the Internet.

About 30 Gators fans from around the country filtered in and out of the site's live chat room during the broadcast, and the first call came from two New York Gators, one of whom was home and the other at a Yankees game.

"It's still a religious station tonight," one chat room participant wrote. "The Gator religion."

Manuel started as a frequent visitor on the site and became a part after meeting owner Ray Hines. In a common practice, he volunteers his time to write columns for the site and makes money only from the show's advertising.

This may sound like people who have too much time on their hands, but to Rivals.com vice president and executive producer David Eckoff, it sounds like business.

Seattle-based Rivals aggregates more than 600 Web sites, including Gator Country and the popular Florida State War Chant site at floridastate.rivals.com into a single network. Among sports sites, Nielsen Net/Ratings has ranked Rivals No. 1 in stickiness (people spending the most time on it) for the last 11 months.

"Sports fans crave information," Eckoff said. "They can't get enough. They have an insatiable appetite. They want to know more on their favorite team than the other person who works down the hall in the office."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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