North Adams Company Joins Forces with ESPNStaff reports
iBerkshires
04:53PM / Wednesday, January 14, 2009
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — A local Web company is powering sports broadcaster ESPN's venture into online classifields for outdoors enthusiasts.
Raceway Media LLC, based in North Adams, a company of Boxcar Media LLC, is collaborating with ESPNOutdoors.com to launch a classifieds marketplace for hunting, fishing and camping products and services.
The new classifieds section debuted on ESPNOutdoors.com today, and marks the first classified advertising on the leading sports site.
Under the agreement, the ESPNOutdoors.com classifieds will be powered by Raceway, which will be responsible for the technology and operations for buyer, seller and business-to-business services. The new subsection can be found on the ESPN Outdoors site's main navigation.
 Raceway Media has proven its success in online classifieds with RacingJunk.com, the world's largest online motorsports marketplace. The site has more than 300,000 registered members and averaged 653,000 unique users per month in 2008. In October 2008, it recorded 63 million page views and an average of over one hour spent on the site by registered members.
"We look forward to a very successful partnership with ESPN," said Ozzie Alvarez, president and CEO of Raceway Media. "This is a very exciting opportunity for our company to power the new ESPN Outdoors.com classified site and is a great testament to the hard work and creative employees that we have here in North Adams."
The new classified site's administration will be done from Boxcar Media's Main Street office. ESPNOutdoors.com and Raceway Media will collaborate on display advertising within the section. Additionally, promotion for ESPNOutdoors.com Classifieds will run on other sites owned and operated by Raceway Media — including its flagship Web site RacingJunk.com — to drive usage and awareness.
"The level of engagement for classified ads is robust, so we're very pleased to have the opportunity to power the new ESPNOutdoors.com classifieds and meet the demand for an online marketplace serving enthusiasts of the great outdoors," said Matthias Czabok, Raceway Media's vice president for business development.
 Boxcar Media is a multimedia publishing firm that is also the parent company of iBerkshires.com. Raceway's holdings include RacingJunk.com and MotorcycleAds.com, which together receive more than 70 million page views per month and have more than 300,000 members.
Raceway Media also owns BoatingJunk.com, MuscleCarJunk.com, RacingJunkRides.com, RJRaceSpace.com and the recently launched CollectorCarNation.com. It recently partnered with Snap-on to launch S-TECH, a social networking site and online community for current and prospective automotive and aviation technology students, their instructors and professionals in the field.
Registration to ESPN Outdoors Classifieds is free and open to all users, beginning with two ads per month. Users can purchase upgraded ad characteristics such as "featured" placement, additional photos, supersized ads and more. Pricing ranges from free to $6.95 for a monthly upgrade and $49.95 for an annual upgrade. Businesses can purchase a business account starting at $55 per month to be included in the Guides/Lodges categories for Hunting and Fishing.
At launch, the featured classifieds categories and subcategories are:
Hunting (Apparel, Calls/Decoys/Collectibles, Guides/Lodges, Tree Stands, Miscellaneous)
Fishing (Apparel, Guides/Lodges, Lures/Tackle/Miscellaneous, Rods/Reels)
Camping (Apparel, Equipment, Tents/Campers, Miscellaneous)
ATVs (Honda, Polaris, Suzuki, Yamaha, Other, Parts)
Powersports (Dirt Bikes/ATV & Parts, Go-Karts & Parts, Snowmobiles & Parts)
Snowmobiles (Arctic Cat, Polaris, Skidoo, Yamaha, Other)
Toterhomes/RVs/Motorhomes
They can also be accessed through RacingJunk.com. |
