ESPNcricinfo
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| URL | espncricinfo.com |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Cricket related website |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | English |
| Owner | ESPN Inc. |
| Launched | 1993 |
| Alexa rank |  179 (March 2012[update])[1] |
| Current status | Active |
ESPNcricinfo is a sports news website devoted entirely to the sport of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and StatsGuru, a database of historical matches and players from the 18th century to the present
The site, originally conceived in a pre-World Wide Web form in 1993 by Dr. Simon King, was acquired in 2002 by the Wisden Group — publishers of several notable Cricket magazines and the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. As part of an eventual breakup of the Wisdon Group, it was sold to ESPN in 2007.
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[edit] History
CricInfo was launched in 1993 by Dr. Simon King, a British researcher at the University of Minnesota with help from students and researchers at universities around the world. It initially operated as a volunteer-based collective, and started life as a simple IRC bot. It was soon made available via Gopher as well, and with the advent of the Mosaic web browser in April 1993 became one of the earliest content web sites on the Internet.
While a company, CricInfo Ltd, was formed in 1996, CricInfo remained essentially a volunteer run operation until late 1999 and was not fully staffed until late 2000. The site was entirely reliant on contributions from avid fans around the world who spent many hours compiling electronic scorecards and contributing them to CricInfo's comprehensive archive, as well as keying in live scores from games around the world using CricInfo's scoring software, "dougie". In 2006, Cricinfo's estimated worth was $150 million.[2]
[edit] Growth and success
Cricinfo's significant growth in the 1990s made it an attractive site for investors during the peak of the dotcom boom, and in 2000 it received $37 million worth of Satyam Infoway Ltd. shares in exchange for a 25 per cent stake in the company (a valuation of around £100 million). It used around $22m worth of the paper to pay off initial investors but only raised about £6 million by selling the remaining stock. While the site continued to attract more and more users and operated on a very low cost base, its income was not enough to support a peak staff of 130 in nine countries, forcing redundancies.
By late 2002 the company was making a monthly operating profit and was one of very few independent sports sites to avoid collapse (such as Sports.com and Sportal). However, the business was still servicing a large loan. A merger with the better capitalised Wisden Group (then owned by Sir Paul Getty) took place, and the company was renamed Wisden Cricinfo. Soon after, the existing wisden.com website was closed and gradually the Wisden brand was also removed from the site. In ten years Cricinfo had effectively established primacy (at least in the electronic sphere) over Wisden, one of the oldest brands in sports publishing.
In December 2005, Wisden re-launched its recently discontinued Wisden Asia Cricket magazine as Cricinfo Magazine, a magazine dedicated to coverage of Indian cricket. The magazine published its last issue in July 2007.
In June 2007, ESPN Inc. announced that it had acquired Cricinfo from the Wisden Group. The acquisition was intended to help further expand Cricinfo by combining the site with ESPN's other web properties, including ESPN.com and ESPN Soccernet. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.[3]
ESPNcricinfo's popularity was further demonstrated on 24 February 2010, when the site could not handle the heavy traffic experienced after notable Indian player Sachin Tendulkar's broke the record for the highest individual score in a One Day International match with 200*.[4]
[edit] Features
ESPNcricinfo contains various news, columns, blogs, and fantasy sports games. Among its most popular feature are its liveblogs of cricket matches, which includes a bevy of scorecard options, allowing readers to track such aspects of the game as wagon wheels and partnership breakdowns. For each major cricket match, the live scores are accompanied by a Bulletin, which details the turning points of the match and some of the off-field events. The site also offers Cricinfo 3D, a feature which utilizes a match's scoring data to generate a 3D animated simulation of a live match.[5]
Regular columns on ESPNcricinfo include "All Today's Yesterdays", an "on this day" column focusing on historical cricket events, and "Quote Unquote", which features notable quotes from cricketers and cricket administrators.
Among its most extensive feature is StatsGuru, a database originally created by Travis Basevi, containing statistics on players, officials, teams, individual teams, and records.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Espncricinfo.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/espncricinfo.com. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
- ^ Weaver, Paul (16 February 2006). "Cricinfo ups tempo on turning clicks into cash". guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2006/feb/16/cricket.gdnsport3. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
- ^ "ESPN acquires Cricinfo". Cricinfo. 2007-06-11. http://content.cricinfo.com/ci/content/current/story/297655.html. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
- ^ Bal, Sambit. "Tendulkar breaks Cricinfo records". 'From the Editor' blog. ESPNcricinfo. http://blogs.cricinfo.com/fromeditor/archives/2010/02/tendulkar_breaks_cricinfo_reco.php. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
- ^ "Live 3D Cricket at Cricinfo.com". The Next Web. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/live_3d_cricket.php. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
[edit] External links
- ESPNcricinfo
- Cricinfo ups tempo on turning clicks into cash (The Guardian, 16 February 2006)
