One of my favorite sayings is "the only thing constant in life is change" and I have to say it is one of the truest things at FanSpan. As many of you may have notice, we are improving our look. Our front page is different, our style is different, but our focus remains the same.

We are committed to connecting sports fans around the world, but we realized we were not emphasizing it. Our strength lied in our Watch Site search function, so we made it available on our front page. We also focused on the Northwest for all sports bars and restaurants, most of you can find a Watch Site with DirecTV sports packages anywhere in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. 

Another feature we added is a mobile link for those of you with PDA's to locate Watch Sites faster. The application is on everyone's Hub undeneath the calendar. It's easy, all you have to do is put in your phone # and it will sms you a link. I use it on my blackberry and it works great.

Navigation before was another thing that was a little bit confusing, so we are developing links on the top of the page that will never change. Personal, friend, and group navigation will move to the left column. You will probably notice the change by the end of the week. The change will make enjoying FanSpan sooooo much easier.

The exciting thing about all of this is we did not remove any of the functions we had before; we are simply emphasizing what we are great at. We affectionately say we are the only social sports bar search engine. Or to make it more relatable: yelp.com for sports bars, Yellowpages.com for fans, or tripadvisor.com for sports:).  (Hopefully making it easier for you to describe what your crazy friends are doing.) If any of you have gone to any of the Watch Sites we have listed, please rate them and comment on them. We love to hear what you think of the places in your area.

This week you will probably see a lot more style changes. We felt the look before was good, but we are going for great. We believe we have found a very talented person that will take us there and she is working 2x to make it happen.

Thank you again for all the support and please keep checking in, using the service, participating and giving us feedback! We will be pulling the cover off this thing very soon and will keep you all in touch.

Cheers,

The FanSpan Team

If there are two words that could represent 2008 thus far they would be: gas prices. As we enter the football season in a few months’ game costs could spell disaster for the bank account, but it is a small dent compared to the rest of the costs of attending. Let's examine the actual cost of attending a game.

1. Ticket price = $62.38 average*

2. Average miles to and from game = 60 ($4.17 per gallon)/22.4mpg = $11.16

3. Parking = $30.00

4. 2 beers @ $8.00 a piece = $16.00

5. Food = $25.00 (about 2 hot dogs, nachos)

6. 2 more beers (just for good measure) = $16.00

Total outing = $160.54 for one person!

I don't know about everyone else, but this seems a little high to me. I am not insinuating not going to games (because there is nothing better than doing s o), but it does seem a little ridiculous to pay 3.5% of your monthly income on 1 game (based on a 55,000 per year household income). 

I love going to games, but I think team owners are starting to exploit the loyalty of sports fans. It's bad business and I am tired of spending case-o-bud premium on a tall boy.