BSN Completes Year of Great Growth!

JACKSON – September 6, 2020 – Brendon D. Miller

We are, no doubt, extremely blessed at BSN!!! BSN has experienced a year of exceptional growth during the second half of 2019 and thus far in 2020. Thank you to all who follow our website on a daily basis!!!

As a Note, this article was originally prepared to be published the first week of August regarding the statistics as they were at that time. However, I did not ever finish or publish the article, so the time period for website traffic now referenced is the last 13 months instead of 12 months.

I have to admit that the BSN web traffic numbers stated below are just incredible to me and frankly beyond my imagination. If you would have told me thirteen months ago that I could fully operate a website (I do all the posting and content on site and that is in itself a miracle), and the site would have over 28 million hits and 7.5 million page views with an average of over 2 million hits a month and 71,000 a day, I would have told you need to put down the bottle!

I personally began running the website in the middle of January 2019, a few months after I became sole owner of BSN. Up until that time, I had mainly focused on having content on the BSN Facebook Page. A new website was needed, and I fortunately asked Jarad Fugate to redesign the domain from the ground up and make it possible for me to operate. I am so thankful for Jarad. The results speak for themselves, as I receive so many great comments about the look and functionality of our site.

After figuring out the operation, I began moving all content from principally being presented on Facebook to the website. Website content is the only content considered valid online media by credentialing entities and sports, so the move was warranted. That was principally completed by the target date of August, 2019. August was chosen as the beginning date as same is usually when Football at all levels and High School and UK Volleyball get going, and the summer lull of sports action ends. I consider August 1 the beginning of each coverage/advertising year. Given that, as of July 31, the site actually finished the first coverage year with emphasis on the website, and boy was it a great one.

For the year, (August 1 – July 31) BSN had 26,027,138 traffic on the site with with 6,791,733 page views!!! Add in August, and the numbers were 28,411,318 hits and 7,565,042 page views. An average of 2,185,486 hits per month and 71,746 a day, with 581,926 page views per month, and 19,104 a day.

Just keep in mind that the website numbers do not reflect the thousands of views on our LIVE Webcasts on Facebook and Youtube of Breathitt Football, Jackson City Soccer, 14th Region Volleyball and Basketball here in Eastern Kentucky. I was astounded when we had over 25,000 watch our Webcast of the 14th Region Championship Game between Wolfe County and Hazard in March!!

In July, BSN completed its largest month of traffic (hits) on the website to date with a total of 3,285,186 hits during the month. My goal had been to increase traffic to 3 million a month since I took over operation of the site, and we finally got there. Given our growth pattern in early 2020, I originally thought it was coming in March, but the Covid shutdowns hit on March 12th, and there has basically been no live coverage from then on.

I was hopeful that once we hit the 3 million a month, that would be the new norm per month, but the sports world has changed. On March 12th, myself and reporter Bradley Charles were on 65 just South of Elizabethtown on the way to Nashville for the SEC Tourney when the cancellations began rolling in and all “at-game” sport coverage basically ended, and we do not know when, and if, it will ever get back to any semblance of the new normal in coverage.

Since the shutdown in March, we were not able to provide “at-game” coverage of the following, only some virtual coverage as been allowed:
– College Basketball – SEC Tournament, ACC Tournament, NCAA Tournament
for both the CATS and CARDS until they were eliminated
– High School Basketball – balance of the Girls Sweet 16, and Boys Sweet 16
– High School Baseball and Softball – 14th Region action for full season
– PGA – Barbasol Championship
– NASCAR – races from Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Daytona, Sparta,
Indianapolis, Pocono, Texas and Las Vegas.
– Indianapolis 500
– Horse Racing – Derby and Keeneland
– Cincinnati Reds – from original opening day to date

I truly wonder what the traffic would have been if the sports world would not have been forced to shut down!

What I am most proud of is that most of the coverage on BSN (both print on the site and Video on Facebook) is provided by people right here in Breathitt County, and Eastern Kentucky. As I am based in Jackson, for our coverage (pre-covid) of UK Sports, UofL Sports, Bengals, Reds, NASCAR, and all other sports than high school, we have to get in the car and head to those locations. I have put over 130,000 miles on my 2012 Buick since 2016, and am now passing on to Evan, LOL. I do contract with a few professionals for some stories and photos, but our principal coverage in all matters is by Eastern Kentuckians, and by people whom do it outside their regular jobs!!

I Love Eastern Kentucky and my principal goal with our High School coverage is to promote our Eastern Kentucky young people!!!!!

I certainly have a great deal of people to thank for the success realized.

First Elizabeth, Evan and Carson. As Breathitt County Attorney, my first reponsibility is to the taxpayers of Breathitt County, so almost none of the work on BSN takes place during office hours. Also, I run a full law practice, so my elected duties and office clients come first, before BSN. With that being so, I work most weekends and nights till late on the site, not to mention when I am actually covering a game. They put up with it, and without my tribe cooperating, it would not be possible!!

A great young man, Bradley Charles, as mentioned above, has stepped in and become our principal columnist for many matters, but foremost UK Football, UK Men’s Basketball and the Cincinnati Bengals. Bradley is from Stanton, and juggles being the radio voice of Wolfe County Sports on WCBJ, a 4.0 Jounalism student at UK, and running all over the country with me for UK and Bengals coverage. Big things ahead for this young man in the sports industry, and I hope all come with BSN!!

The great Ty Back, produces all our LIVE Webcasts and is awesome along with doing video and social media for UK Football. Though most of Ty’s work does not make it on the webstie, I simply could not, and would not do this without him! As a little preview, wait until you see our Webcasts this year. Huge improvements from last year!!!

So much love for Larry Robinson. Larry is an excellent photographer. Larry’s work since the inception of BSN has been immense. Larry loves to shoot and his work on NASCAR and High School Football is exceptional. Check out his pics from Mountain Motor Speedway over the summer!!

Our writers: Anthony Holbrook is just outstanding on his weekly coverage of the Nascar Cup Races!!! Casey Allen and Rob Houshell have been great for Breathitt Football. J.J. Baker always great with his articles for High School Baseball and Hazard Football, along with Nathan Lyttle for Perry Central Football. Michael Miller on social media for UK Basketball. John Turner did UK Baseball. Keith Taylor of Kentucky Today contributes UK Sports articles. Harold Brashear and Fletcher Long also contributed during the year before moving on to other entities.

Appreciate all our contributing photographers!! Armando Garza takes care of all UofL Sports and some Bengals. Michael Huang. Danny Pendleton knocked out UK Ladies BB, and UK Gymnastics. Cordis Bishop hit some High School games. Scott Warren hit a Bengals game and backed me up at UK Basketball. Nick Hammonds, Estill Robinson, and John Crisologo also hit some action for us.

I look forward to the future, and whatever form we can cover sports in the COVID-19 and Post-COVID-19 world. Again, thank you so much and we surely appreciate you!!