Coming Soon
No, this is not related to Brooklyn Backstretch’s earlier post. (SA Steve)
While it seems like it started with the hearings, it really started much earlier, at least as early as the Breeders’ Cup / Ladies Day / Take Back The Race Petition where we ask the Breeders’ Cup to “Create a fan committee representing the diversity of the racing audience to provide ideas and feedback on proposed changes and marketing plans to the Breeders’ Cup” (among other things).
Not too long after the Preakness, Jessica @ Railbird and I were enjoying some Friday afternoon hot dogs at Old Town and discussing all things racing. At one point we agreed that we should start our own damn Fan Committee because it was clear it was probably never going to happen otherwise.
Mid last week I was thinking fondly of two mid 90s pioneering sites, angry.org (the original) and kvetch.com (the one that got more attention). Both were very basic sites that allowed users vent and complain. Both also displayed complaints, which were incredibly fun to browse/read!
I printed out a bunch from angry.org and still plan on framing them! One was about the snotty sales assistants at a Calvin Klein store, another about an old lady who was a frequent annoying shopper at a grocery store. Most of them were just eh but a some of them were FANtastic.
With this in mind I registered selfappointedfancommitee.com and emailed Jessica. This also coincided with her sage observation that fans and players are not viewed as stakeholders in the industry that we support with our capital.
After a few emails, some comps and a bit of coding, we had a plan… The Self Appointed Fan Committee was born! Our working tag line is “Our only agenda is to make sure you’re heard!”.
We’ll be launching the first full version of on or around July 1st… stay tuned, and get your list of grievances together!
Posted by dana on Jun 22 2008
Filed Under: Industry, Self Appointed Fan Committee, Take Back the Race, Internet, You Can Help, :), Racing
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lol photo
Great idea!
This is the kind of idea that led us to add a new feature to www.paulickreport.com, Best of the Blogs. We hope it will give additional exposure to what we think are the most interesting posts and freshest ideas.
“Best of the Blogs” will be subjective, but we’ll refresh the list often. All ideas welcome!
Ray
Great idea Dana!
This ties in/goes along some of the same lines of thought I’ve been discussing with Teresa.
Some of “you guys” on the TBA have been serious handicappers and fans for a very long time but I believe between everyone’s input and the great people that comment on the various blogs there should be enough feedback for the “powers that be” to know that we care deeply about the sport and not a bunch of yahoos just typing for the heck of it.
Even though I’m not a serious handicapper, I’m a 36 year fan of the sport going back to Riva Ridge and I’ve followed the sport enough to know that the sport has changed and there’s many things that need to be corrected. I look forward to the new site, and hopefully I will be able to add a few items of some value!
E - :)
Ray - thanks, and looking fwd to keeping an eye on that feature!
Katie - I’m sure you will, looking forward to it (too)!
Can’t wait to shoot off my big mouth, great idea. Being a photog, I get sh*t upon by the industry just about every day. Heading to the garage to begin building state of the art soap box.
This is a great idea Dana! I look forward to hopefully providing some comments from a long-time fan, who is definitely not a handicapper in any sense. I go back to the days of Riva Ridge, as my friend Katie indicated, this makes me a 36 year fan. Holy cow.
It’s definitely not like the old days anymore.
C - “state of the art soap box” is fantastic! can’t wait to hear it!
LindaVA - thx! You and Katie have already contributed… thanks to your comments I’m adding an optional field so people can indicate how long they’ve been a fan. It’ll be interesting to see trends that emerge out of feedback from long time fans… and new fans too who don’t have the context (like myself!).