With new owners- does this mean that the Ruckers Forum may no longer exist- under new ownership?
Who would buy this website, and why? Would they just leave it as it is or make vast change? Like removing the ruckers Forum?. Ebay style auction- http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/71183073/SARugby_com.html
End Of An Era Jul 26,2012 Written by: SARugby.com Editor
Tne of South Africa’s premier websites, SARugby.com, has gone under the hammer, signalling an end of a golden era and the beginning of an exciting new chapter.
The great dot com bubble of the late nineties gave technology investors cold feet. In those early years of the internet, the astronomical success of start-ups such as Google saw greed flood the market and push prices for tech assets well above their sensible limit.
The most expensive domain ever sold was Insure.com, for a fall-over-backwards figure of $16 million (R136m).
So the excitement around the sale of local rugby site SARugby.com would seem about as unusual as its history.
One may think SARugby.com would be owned by SA Rugby Pty(Ltd) – the controlling body of the game in South Africa.
It isn’t.
Instead, it was registered in the mid-nineties by schoolboy David Wessels when SA Rugby where going by the name SARFU.
Thus Wessels could prove he never intended to pass as the official body – and despite some early jostling from the SARFU legal department, they were forced to admit defeat.
Wessels has controlled the domain ever since.
“They weren’t all that happy with me,” says Wessels with a cheeky smile. “But we were also using the site to raise funds for charity and I think common sense got the better of them.”
He also tells of how Louis Luyt - then President of SARFU - tried to ‘buy’ the domain with Test match tickets in the middle of a Janet Jackson concert at Ellis Park.
“Dr Luyt must have been thinking – ‘this little punk!” laughs Wessels.
SARugby.com is now one of the most powerful sporting media brands in the country. Over the last five years it’s attracted an average of 100,000 visits a month – with visitors sticking around for nearly six minutes per visit.
That’s a huge leap up from the industry norm.
The site has also attracted sponsorship from leading brands, such as Vodacom, SASOL, Ford and BMW.
In partnership with sports merchandising chain Sneakers, SARugby.com also ran a successful online store and there have been plans to extent the offering to ticketing and premium content.
The decision to put it up for sale on popular auction website Bid or Buy wasn’t an easy one.
“I have huge emotional attachment to SARugby.com, but there are too many things going on at the moment for me to give it the attention it really deserves.”
‘The other things’ Wessels might be referring to include his role as defence consultant for Canberra-based Super Rugby franchise the Brumbies.
There are surely some conflict of interest issues in owning the platform that reports on your own performance, so it’s going under the hammer.
The starting price – for the sale that ends on 15 August – is R69,000. It’s a price at which one would expect most established media houses to bid.
And Wessels is likely to offer the buyer two other digital assets under his control – SASoccer.com and SAGolf.com – as well as the opportunity for a full scale sports publishing business.
Unlike some of the earlier digital prospectors, the new owner of SARugby.com could have uncovered themselves a real digital gem.
For more information on the auction, clic
