Fellow TideFans Members - We Need Your Help!

[BamaNation]

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We need your help!

Dear Fellow TideFans Community Members:

This note is a bit long but explains in detail exactly our vision, what you can do to help, and how we can all win in the process. I hope you’ll take the time to read it all because it’s all about you, really.

The Scoop
We’re working on a new corporate sponsorship program that is described below and also details how you fit into this picture and can help us make it successful. But, first, I want to thank you for the awesome support so many of you have provided in numerous ways over the first eight years of TideFans’ existence.

All along, you good folks have supported this community every step of the way by supporting our advertisers, personally contributing to the support of the site, shopping at TideFansStore.com, etc.

And here’s what we’ve done with your support:

• We’ve used that money to not only keep the site running, but to improve and enhance our products and services for you;
• We’ve massively upgraded our servers;
• We’ve upgraded the message board software;
• We have had fun and exciting Pick’em contests with sizeable prizes;
• We’ve added a number of new features recently and will continue to do so throughout the coming months;
• and we’ve added a host of other features and upgrades.

With these improvements, we have experienced very little down time, including not missing a beat the last two football seasons and recruiting signing days – even while experiencing thousands of simultaneous users and having our busiest days in history! As always, we’ve listened to your suggestions over the years and tried to give you what you’ve asked for. In fact, you are the sole reason for our existence these last eight years!

There is a LOT more that we would like to do to make TideFans.com even better and we’ve come up with a plan to make this happen.

Our Vision
To get this and many other things done, we have been working on a new and improved sponsorship model that we believe will finally allow us to do just that - but it will only work if you are willing to support it. Our success in the last few years has allowed us to develop this model due to your visits, participation, and support of TideFans.com)

Now that success depends on you even moreso than ever before.

Our vision is a long-term partnership between you and a select list of committed sponsor partners. These top-tier companies will financially support TideFans and you, in turn, agree to help their businesses grow and prosper.

These companies will offer some great deals, products, and services with their ads and we want you to click away and signup and/or buy their products and services. The success of this new vision depends entirely on how well the community does just that.

We will have exclusive official sponsors in each of several areas, like say, consumer electronics or pizza delivery or home improvement, etc.

Here’s how it will work: If Circuit City, for example, should become one of our new sponsor partners, it will be a win, win, win for you, TideFans.com, and Circuit City if you will do as much of your consumer electronics shopping as possible with them and not with their competition and let them know that you saw their ad on TideFans when doing so.

We are not asking you to go buy things that you don’t want or need (although we won’t complain if you do); we just need you to do your normal shopping with them when you are in the market for goods or services they provide.

TideFans.com independence is maintained
To accomplish this new long-term sponsorship model we have recently banded together with other independent-minded web sites like TexAgs.com, HornFans.com, TheSabre.com, TigerDroppings.com, and about twenty other similar sites. These are some of the largest independent sites around (None of us want to merge our sites into a national network like Rivals or Scout but we are attempting to build a long-term sponsorship model where corporate advertisers make a real commitment (at least one year) to you and this community.

By doing this, we want to avoid what we call drive-by advertising, where (as is the case now) you see ads from hundreds of different and irrelevant advertisers via banners, pop-ups, and other intrusive ad formats. We do not believe that uncommitted, intrusive advertising serves anyone well. Moreover, we think it seriously detracts from the community. But in the past we've done whatever was necessary to survive.

In moving to this model, we will start to limit the number of ads appearing on a page and it should provide a much cleaner look for the site. We will be reengineering our look a bit, too.

How you fit in
We have several premier companies ready to give this new approach a try, but it will only bear fruit if you are willing to make it work by returning their love.

Because our approach is new and unique, the first few sponsors (with our permission) will be testing the waters before committing for one full year. They are skeptical because of the newness and the novelty of our approach in the advertising world. You wouldn't believe the effort that has been put forth over the last year in getting to this point.

But since our vision is now becoming a reality, we REALLY need you to blow their doors off and prove that TideFans.com is a great investment for their business. We will be announcing via press releases and emails the details of each test so you will know exactly how you can help this work

Thanks again for your continued and loyal support of the site over the past eight years and thank you for taking this new long-term sponsorship model to heart. With your help, we will make it successful for everyone involved and be able to take TideFans.com to the next level!

We’re confident that you’ll step up to the plate with your support and help us hit a home run, securing the future of TideFans.com. We sincerely believe the best is yet to come!

Summary
To summarize, here’s what’s happening:

1) We’re moving to a corporate sponsorship model (which hasn’t really been done before like this)
2) We need your help in showing these new sponsors that you REALLY appreciate their supporting the TideFans.com community.
3) Nothing else changes except we expect to constantly keep improving the site as we have been over the last eight years
4) Finally, we hope you enjoy the hard work that has been put into this sponsorship program and will continue to appreciate the fact that, with the program’s success, the TideFans.com community will continue to thrive!

Thanks again & Roll Tide!

Brett Young
Publisher - TideFans.com

PS. Want to advertise your company with millions of visitors?
If you’re a decision-maker for a company that would want to benefit from getting in front of two million unique visitors per month, and over 100 million page views per month, we’d love to hear from you. For long-term sponsorship opportunities, please contact advertising@sportswar.com.

[Bama Torch in Pcola]

This is an interesting concept. I'm happy to help, as much as I've taken from this site over the years. Just a couple questions:

1. When do you expect the test run to take effect?
2. How long with the test run last, and what needs to be accomplished in order to "close the deal"?

I appreciate all you do.

[LCN]

Good deal . I've never understood the philosophy behind the "drive-by" sponsors . Repetition = results . Congrats on the successful effort and thanks a bundle for the work that is performed by the entire TideFans staff .