The End, and a New Beginning By Zach

Today marks the final day of Sportszilla, at least on Blogger. Starting tomorrow, we're moving to a brand new website, www.sportszillablog.com, on a new server and with new content managing software. It will rpovide for a smoother, more enjoyable experience and will allow us to do a whole bunch of new and exciting things. For the time being, this site will serve as the archive of past Sportszilla goodness, but no new content will be published here.

Tomorrow we'll launch the new site with our NFL previews, and move on from there. Please join us in the future...and the future is now!

Below is a press release about the new site:

My name is Zachary Geballe, as some of you may know. As others of you may know, I run a sports weblog (blog) called Sportszilla and the Jabber Jocks. What I doubt any of you know is that Tuesday, September 5th, marks a whole new era for Sportszilla, and for me.

The launch of our new site, which can be found at www.sportszillablog.com, will coincide with our extensive NFL previews. From there, we’ll still be running the same great content that perhaps attracted you to Sportszilla in the first place.

I founded Sportszilla in November of 2004, which means we’re creeping up on a two-year anniversary. In my first post ever, I said “So, here’s my attempt at encapsulating the world of sports, at least from my point of view.” Yes, I know, a typically grandiose statement to make, but one that I still think holds true. From the beginning, I saw Sportszilla as an antidote, or at least an alternative, to sites like ESPN.com and the other lumbering behemoths of online sports writing. Of course, when I did this, there were few other places on could turn for regular, high-quality sportswriting. Today, nearly two years later, the Internet is littered with sports blogs, some good, some bad, and some that only lasted four posts.

Over the last 21 months, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to add five excellent writers to the Sportszilla team, all of whom I’m also fortunate enough to call my friends. Ben Valentine, David Arnott, Bryan Koch, Imtiaz (T-Bone) Mussa, and John Schmeelk have provided excellent insight, analysis, and fun (plus a lot of soccer coverage from T-Bone) to the site. Sportszilla would never have become what it is today without all their hard work.

As we get ready to usher in the new era, a few things need to be said. The goal of Sportszilla was, is, and always will be to provide top-notch sports writing free of the typical clichés and inanities that plague newspapers and web sites. We have the luxury of being outside the corporate structure, so we can say what we truly think without fear of advertiser reprisal or loss of access. We’re also committed to helping grow the sports blogging community. I read about a dozen blogs on a daily basis and have visited hundreds more from time to time: long gone are the days when a few media outlets horded information and analysis, parceling it out in meager and unreadable doses; we can now function as sports fans without ever needing to subscribe to ESPN Insider or deal with some of the knuckleheads who write for other major websites.

So to those of you who are my friends and family, I invite you to check out the new site, which once again can be found at www.sportszillablog.com. For those of you who are in the sports blogging world, I too invite you to visit the new site (often), and more than that to link to it (if you so choose). One of the great things about the community of sports bloggers is that there’s a great sense of camaraderie, not competition, surrounding it.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, concerns, or fantasy football tips (my draft is tonight).