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Interest in game research leads to majority stake in Pro Football Focus site

Cris Collinsworth is spending much of his time these days focused on his majority ownership of Pro Football Focus, an 11-year-old football analytics/information site he stumbled upon years ago.

“I always wanted to hire a team of people that would be like a football factory, where all we did was watch film, told each other exactly what we saw on the tape, but the only people allowed in the conversation were those who had actually watched the game tapes and studied the film,” he says. “I came across Pro Football Focus, and I’m like, ‘This is pretty good.’ I signed up for their $26.99 service, where you get all this extra data, and I’m thinking, ‘This has got to be a coach. I don’t know how they’re getting this stuff, but this is dead-on.’ So I go to the contact us page and type, ‘This is Cris Collinsworth. I’m just wondering who you guys are. I really enjoy your site, and here’s my telephone number.’ Three minutes later, my phone rings and it’s [site founder] Neil Hornsby, who has this British accent, and all I can think of is, ‘Son of a gun, I just got hustled by this Brit for $26.99!’ So I start drilling him on guards and inside linebackers and safety play, and after about three or four minutes, I shut up and I just started listening and finally asked, ‘Who are you?’ He told me his story about how it started and I was hooked.”

The site employs nearly 150 people all over the world logging game tape. “We have around 19 NFL teams. We’ve got four college teams. We’ve got networks and work with ESPN, Turner and 120 Sports,” Collinsworth explains. “The big decision we made is that we’re going to do all the college football games. Before, it’s only been the NFL. Now we’re doing more than 100 college teams, and it has really become our most valuable property because NFL teams want it for the draft.”

He sees a business model mix of business-to-business offering and regular fan-based fantasy and subscription base.

— Abraham D. Madkour

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