I was confident we’d see a nice year-over-year improvement from our first season, but the final stats were more than I could have imagined.
Overall traffic during this year’s camp nearly tripled last year’s for an increase of 182 percent. Average daily traffic rose 156 percent. Put it this way: Each day this year easily topped our single best day from 2014.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that growth was all about the site. There is unprecedented excitement behind the Panthers right now, as evidenced by the record-crushing numbers in Spartanburg and at Fan Fest. Plus, I had much more help this year.
Sure, this is just a few weeks on an independent site that covers an NFL team, not an Oscar speech, but I need to hand out two more thank-yous.
First, to Tim Durr. A Syracuse grad student, he came highly recommended from one of my former professors up there. He didn’t disappoint. Tim spun out some solid pieces, but he also did a ton of dirty work, including transcriptions. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about some that we posted and trust me; those things are a pain to knock out. Also, he dealt with me for three weeks, and that’s award worthy in itself.
And thanks to Jeremy Igo for providing his photos. I’ve long been obsessed with technology and how something as small as an iPhone can allow reporters to send back reports from all corners of the globe, but an iPhone can’t replace proper pictures. Jeremy, founder of Carolina Huddle, was in Spartanburg every day snapping some incredible stuff.
Anyway, the producers are playing the music now, so I’ll get off the stage. Thanks again and hopefully BBR will continue to be a place Panthers fans want to come throughout the upcoming season.
As always, feedback is very much welcome. If there’s anything we did you didn’t like or something else you would have wanted to see, leave a comment below or send over an or tweet.
–BV[line]