Regional youth soccer talk stays hot at WPS-Soccer.com

WPS-Soccer.com is the self-made leader in regional youth soccer talk around the Northwest. The site is the go-to place for all the latest in the burgeoning youth scene. Jason Harnasch (who goes by "Squash" in the forums) started the site a few years back to meet the need for parents, players and fans to have a place to discuss the game. Years later he looks back with us at how it all began.

SSE: When, how and why did the website and forums get started?

Jason: "The when is pretty easy….. January of 2005. I started the site mainly because parents had no place to get or share info in an easy and tangible way. Most of the sites at the time were deleting more posts than they were keeping up for people to read. It seemed like every time someone said anything negative about a club, the club would email the site and it was removed right away.

Around that same time my nephew and brother were going through some hard times with Lake Washington Youth Soccer Board of Directors ….. (a few links below.)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002089037_soccer12e.html
http://www.seattlepi.com/othersports/189236_soccer03.html

I started the site not long after because I truly felt like people needed an avenue to point out the flaws in the system of youth soccer or people who did not have the kids best interest at heart. They needed a place to praise the kids that play soccer and the clubs they belonged to as well. People just needed a place they knew they could come and read about the ins and outs of premier or select soccer and get answers from people who had been there and done it. The other big sites at the time were more concerned with making money off a banner ads and deleting posts if those clubs called up complaining.

I took it upon myself to start WashingtonPremierSoccer.Com at that time and to give people what they deserved."

What have been some of the changes over the years?

"The site itself has been completely changed twice now. I honestly can't even remember what it looked like before the look of the site now. I just knew at the time I needed to make changes because the old site was bandwidth heavy. Basically when I redid the site I decided to use CSS to streamline it and I cut the bandwidth use in half over the old site.

The forum changed in august of 2008 for a few reasons. The biggest reason was my web host at the time pulled the plug on support of the old phpbb forum I used, which meant any updates I did had to be manually done with no help from them. The second reason was spambots and spammers in general. The old forum was very difficult to keep up with all the spambots and spammers. I was having to delete anywhere from 1-10 fake accounts a day. The new forum is much more protected from those type of issues although not 100% secure from them. The change-over took about 3 days of the forum being down and being converted to the new style I use.

There will also be members who remember when my site completely went away for about a week. My domain expired and the email address they had on account was incorrect, so when it expired my domain name was sold to a guy from Russia.

I spent a week negotiating with him to buy it back. I felt pretty lucky he had no idea what he had and how bad I wanted it back. In the end, on a domain name he paid about $10 for, I bought it back for $200. I felt glad just to get it back and he felt great about making a profit! I now have all of my domains through 2017-2018 to make sure it doesn't happen again."

What's your background in soccer and in running websites?

"I grew up playing the game and started at age five playing recreational for my mom, actually. She at the time played on one of the first all women's teams in the state. There may be some readers out there that remember the Shamrocks from way back in the day.

As I got older I played Premier for the LWYSA ADP Aztecs. I played on two state championship teams, but of course we never went to regionals because back then it was only certain years that went. (even years I think..14,16,18) My coach during this time was Jon Matsushita, who I have to say did a lot for me on the field and off the field and was the biggest reason I started coaching.

I played for Dave Schumacher in HS one year at Juanita, and I cannot remember the coach who took over after day for my junior and senior years. I still to this day figure I remember Dave because I learned more in the one year than the two with the guy who's name I can't remember…(Jason laughs).

I never played beyond high school mainly because of grades and lack of direction in my life. It's why when people ask on the forum about getting a scholarship for soccer or being seen….. I say GRADES are #1. Without the grades many opportunities will be lost that likely would have come your way. I look back and wish I had studied…..not more, just studied at all for school. I could get a C and never open a book, I know now I should have opened the book and got A's.

As far as running the site goes….. I had zero background. I had an idea and I knew I could do it, it would just take time and books. There are still times I wish I knew more about certain things. I guess that just means I need to get more books and read up!"
 

Why do you think the site has stayed so popular for so long? (How many hits / views do you get in an average week?)

"I think the reason the site has stayed popular is simple….freedom! Members know that they can speak their minds on topics. They know I won't delete their posts unless they are bashing a player, posting porn, or spam. If you have an opinion on something, information, a complaint, a comment of praise…..you can post it on the site and know it will be seen and heard by others.

People know they can call me a jerk and I'll leave it there for all to read. If you want people to talk, then you have to let them talk even when you don't agree with them. You have to build a place they know and feel comfortable telling their stories without fear of their club, other parents, or their thoughts being deleted.

As far as page views go for the entire site…… it changes all the time but I'll just give you stats from this month. Some months are bigger numbers and some smaller depending on State Cup, Tryouts, Summer, League, and so forth. Daily pages views for the month averaged 26,958 a day, while hits per day averaged 142,249 a day. I have a unique visitor average a day of about 2,400 people and about 10,000 unique visitors a month. If you just want to look at the forum statistics they are displayed at this link and only relate to the forum totals."

Did you ever have any 'competition with other youth soccer sites?

"There actually used to be a couple other sites that had forums. Standingsplus and Gotsoccer. In the end they both censored posts and drove people away. Once revenue and hits dropped for Standingsplus they decided it wasn't worth the effort of doing the standings system that made them so popular to begin with. I think most people remember Standingsplus and most loved having a place to get scores each weekend….. I  know I did. Gotsoccer is still around but they no longer do a forum and stick to tournament software/setup. To be honest their forum sucked anyways because people could log in and change their name anytime they wanted and post to themselves or as someone else. It led to a lot of negative posts and a big headache for the site owner….so he took the forum down."

Do you like where youth soccer is headed in Washington?

"I think more kids are playing then ever but I think we need to be careful not to turn it into an upper class sport. I see the costs rising at the top level each year and wonder how as a country, if this is the trend we take the sport down, how we will ever be competitive on the world stage.

In most countries it's a game the poor play daily. In the US it's becoming about traveling to tournaments, Elite leagues, personal training, and monthly coaching fees. I'm not sure this recipe is going to get the best athletes to play because often times some of the best don't have the money."

Anything new planned for the website the rest of this year?

"I have been considering a few things lately the biggest being a gallery feature so people can upload soccer photos. It would be integrated into the forum so those with accounts could share their shots without another thing to sign up for. Dragon (famous WPS-Soccer.com contributor) has recently begun doing a Pulse again, which is a user based newsletter that comes out bi-weekly or so.

I wanted to end my interview by saying the site would not be possible without all the members. I have always said it's a user driven site and that all of them are what make it great.

I could make a list of members who have been a huge part of the site but they all know who they are…..including you. I hope all members new and old continue to be the Pulse of Soccer for many years to come and that they all know I started the site for them."