Why should I pay good money, even a measly two bucks fifty, to be a member?
It really depends on how valuable your time is to you, and whether or not you get frustrated by burrowing through multiple pages at a website to get to your team’s page, or by hit and miss search engines, and whether you can afford to pay two bucks and fifty cents for a yearly membership. We’re really for fans (and sports reporters) who follow their teams religiously, who can’t get enough information about them, and want to access that information as fast and directly as possible. That’s the niche we fill. If that sounds like you, give us a try. For two bucks and fifty cents, it’s hard to go wrong. Or, keep on googling. What we’ve found is, generally speaking, the more a fan or sports reporter uses Follow My Teams, the more they like it. And, they like clearing their browsers of all those team-related bookmarks.
How do you know when a link isn’t working right?
Unless we’re notified by a FMT user, we may not know. While we do perform regular linkage checks, they are random, and there are a lot of links, as in tens of thousands, overall. So please, let us know right away via the Comments page if you come across a problem linkage. And you can check to see if the problem has already been reported on the Known Link Issues page.
Why are some sites not listed?
There are multiple reasons. One, the most current data on a site may be too old, indicating the site is no longer being updated. Generally, if the most current data is more than six months old, the site will not be included. But we do make a fair number of exceptions, based on the type of site. Two, the site may simply regurgitate information from another site that is already listed. But again, we make exceptions. Three, the site may advertise itself as a news or information source, but is principally just pitching products. Four, the site – often belonging to a fan blogger – provides a lot of opinion but little-to-no news or information. Exceptions are made for forums and message boards, or for extraordinarily funny or incisive bloggers. Five, because the site’s URL is identified as corrupt or suspicious by our host server/web platform. Six, because we don’t know about the site. So hey, send us a message letting us know about it. Seven, if we can’t feel reasonably comfortable that a site purporting to be the official site is, in fact, official, and not a spoof. Eight, just because.
So, the sites aren’t paying to be included on FMT?
We wish.
Are all of the listed sites free of charge?
No. The majority of linked sites are free, but some – often local newspapers – require a fee, usually after allowing you to view a certain number of pages. Others require you to register to access certain information on their sites, which may or may not involve a fee.
Will you include my personal team blog on FMT?
Maybe. If your blog is side-splittingly funny or astoundingly incisive, sure. If your blog provides original information about the team, sure. Otherwise, it will depend on how your blog registers on our carefully calibrated Lame-O-Meter.