Table Talk With SportChaser

via NYbestbar.com

Ever been in a city that you just moved to or were just visiting and found yourself rooting for your favorite team in a rival club’s sports bar?

Well luckily the people at SportChaser.com have figured out a way to solve this problem. This fast growing app is making fans and bar owners very happy as they bring them together like Match.com. We were lucky enough to have a chat with Amelie Wisniak of SportChaser, and here’s what she had to say!

FS: In your words, what is SportChaser? How did it come about?

AW: SportChaser is a website that connects sports fans to sports bars by locating which bars are airing their favorite sporting events. In other words, we connect the sports community together. 

As far as how things came about, I am huge sports fan myself and when Tamara and I moved to New York, we had real difficulties to find not only bars that would broadcast my favorite teams games but that would also gather fans rooting for the same team. We realized that there were a wide difficulty for sports fans not rooting for New York teams to find the right bars to watch their games with the right people.

FS: What are you guys currently doing in terms of expansion? How many bars, cities, members, etc?

AW: We are currently working on bars and user acquisition in New York. We have now more than 300 bars on the website and continue to work on user acquisition. As far as the website, SportChaser.com recently released new features to enable users to “pre-checkin” and say where they are going to watch a specific game and invite their friends through Facebook. They can also confirm what bars are actually going to broadcast the game they are looking for and ripple the information to the entire community of “chasers”. We are working on additional new features to enhance the user experience: reviews, favorite bars and much more. We are also working in developing new partnership with sports teams, bars, and other related services. There is a lot going on!

FS: Since the start has anything been updated in terms of technology or business model? 

AW: Our business model is still the same (freemium) even though we are exploring additional source of revenues, mainly related to the organization of events. In terms of technology, we are working on a lot on new features to provide sports fans with the best user experience. 

FS: What plans do you have to take advantage of events such as March Madness, MLB, etc? 

AW: We are currently working with bars to create special events and promote them through the site. March Madness has been highlighted on the site with a special event page. We recently want to gather people from our community that we call “Chasers” from our website, social media and meetup group “Sports fans in bars – New York City”.

FS: How was the Super Bowl for you guys?

AW: The Super Bowl was a great moment for us! We co-hosted a big event at a bar called Tonic East, a multi-level Rooftop Sports bar and Restaurant which stands out with its one of a kind design and decor. Everyone had a lot of fun! It was an amazing opportunity to gather Chasers and personally meet with them.

FS: What are your growth expectations?

AW: We have big growth expectation, especially with the World Cup coming up and our plan to expand to additional cities. We are working hard in develop our brand awareness in New York and eventually target US major cities.

FS: Most importantly, hat has feedback from users been like?

AW: We received great feedbacks from users. People think that the website is really useful and allow them save a lot of time. Some Seahawks and Broncos fans were really happy to find the official Seahawks here in New York for the Super Bowl. Furthermore, people really like our mission: to connect sports fans together. We aim to develop a website that is always more social so people can meet and share the same passion all together.