Struggling sport forums

Hi everyone,

As some of you may know, we have three forums (see sig). The travel one, which has been running the longest, does quite well and will reach the 10,000 post mark next month.

The business forum, launched more recently, is slowly picking up and I'm confident will do quite well given a little more time.

The sport forum, however, seems to really struggle and I just can't seem to figure out why. With the Super Bowl happening tonight, I had hoped we'd be quite established by now that we'd have plenty of discussion going on, but it just doesn't seem to be happening.

It's not like we don't do well on the SEs...

#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=sport+forum
#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=sport+forums
#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=american+football+forum
#4 http://www.google.com/search?q=super+bowl+forum
#5 http://www.google.com/search?q=superbowl+forum

We also do well for other sports searches - eg:

#1 http://www.google.com/search?q=rugby+forum
#2 http://www.google.com/search?q=athletics+forum
#3 http://www.google.com/search?q=cricket+forum
#6 http://www.google.com/search?q=basketball+forum
#7 http://www.google.com/search?q=boxing+forum

So... where are we going wrong? Any help appreciated...

Thanks

Aaron

I've got a sports forum, maybe we could help each other out?

I have had a look at your forums and I was thinking is not it not possible to get some sort of portal system to integrate with your forum? something like v3 arcade ? (I know it is vbulletin but sure u can get similar for phpBB)

I think that something like this allows you to highlight threads that might spark some interest, i mean the one about "do streakers go to nfl games" sounds interesting but I would have no idea it was there unless I delved into the american football topic.

Please only look at this as a thought rather than a definite thing that will improve usage, after all I'm just a beginning and learning all the time.

If possible can you keep your conversation going in this thread rather than PMs
It's just that I have just set up my forum (vbulletin) and your ideas on how to run a successful one might come in handy

My original thoughts for my forum are...

• Custimisation of colours and logos etc is important to give your forum the same feel as your website.

• Trying to get moderators to help you run the forum that are passionate about the topics on your forum. Also helps with promotion etc

• I intend to implement hacks which allow you to add-in certain features, such as arcades (flash games) and reward systems (shop features)

• Only allowing certain people to download files that are attached to threads, maybe after 5 posts or something

Any others?

Doh, just had a look at the forum in your signature The forum zone and realised it kinda helps with the questions that I am having in building a forum from sratch, definitely gonna have a gander at that tonight