Chris from Footy 24/7 and I were just talking on MSN right now, and the topic of revenue came up again - we’ve seen in the last year and a half that football news delivers no where near the sort of ad revenue (from AdSense, CPM, affiliate products or direct ads) the way the same traffic and user-base would in another niche.

The lack of money makes it hard for bloggers to turn their passion into a full-time gig, which is why you see so many failed football blogs (yes, there’s several of them around, good ones too). There are few ‘top’ football blogs, and even fewer independent blogs (Andrew’s Arseblog, Damien’s AVFC Blog, Chris with his EPLTalk and related websites, V at Kickette and, if I may say so, Soccerlens).

Others? CaughtOffside - owned by Sportingo. Pies - owned by Shiny Media. TheOffside - owned by BootsNAll. It’s a tough business to get big and successful in if you don’t have investment, and even then for most people the effort isn’t worth it unless you’re making enough money through other means and are willing to take the hit in revenues to work on something you love.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of selling Soccerlens - but in the long run if you can keep working hard (and smart - nothing worse than working hard in the wrong direction), there’s money to be made and if you can make money talking about something you love (even if it’s not as much money as in web tech or gadgets or real estate), it’s worth something.

In my opinion there are 3 goals a football blog should have:

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FootballMedia.com aims to be a collection - a network - of the best football websites online.

In the future I’ll discuss more of what Football Media is about and also take this opportunity to showcase the sites part of the footballmedia.com network.

Till then, take a look at our flagship football news site, Soccerlens.com.

If you’re interested in joining us, please read this page.