It is with great dismay that I am forced to announce that we have to change the name of our site.
We can no longer operate as Ravens24x7.com.
The name is near and dear to my heart. The words alone inspired me to launch this site.
During the summer of 2002 I was in Ocean City just before the Ravens were set to start training camp. I picked up a copy of The Sun and quickly leafed through to the sports section. There dominating the front page was a story about the White Marlin Open. Nowhere was a word about the Ravens to be found.
I couldn’t believe that Baltimore’s best team wasn’t at least deserving of some space on the front page. After all, the Orioles were in the midst of a 67-95 season under Mike Hargrove.
Digging into the section further provided no relief. I could not find a single word – not one, written about the Ravens. Keep in mind this was the first training camp following the post 2001 roster blow up. There were so many unanswered questions and The Sun provided not a single answer or clue or syllable about the Ravens.
My knee-jerk response: “I want to read about the Ravens 24×7!”
Queue up the light bulb!
An idea was born.
During the following offseason and leading into the Boller years, we began to build Ravens24x7. The site was officially launched on July 3, 2003.
And as Paul Harvey might say, “And now you know the rest of the story!”
I really didn’t know where Ravens24x7 would go, if it would catch on or if anyone would even read it. It started as hobby and an outlet for my thoughts and opinions on the Ravens. And then one day I received an email from a prospective customer who expressed his interest in advertising with us.
I really never even gave that a thought when the site was launched.
But suddenly the game changed.
Two years later running 24×7 became my full-time gig and I haven’t “worked” a day since.
I have a lot of people to thank for getting us to where we are and certainly that includes all of you. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your support and I will promise you with every fiber of my being we will do all that we can to continue earning your support. We have some exciting things we’re working on and I can’t wait to present them to you.
But until that time, I have the unpleasant burden of saying goodbye to a dear friend – the name Ravens24x7.com. It jazzes me so much when I hear someone randomly referring to our site in a friendly kind of way as, “24/7”. It humbles me and it gives a jolt of pride because I know that our hard work has earned that warm nickname.
So where do we go from here?
Honestly I’m not sure. We want to continue to embrace the 24×7 moniker. The challenge is to do so in a memorable way that still tells a story of who we are while not encroaching upon the team’s trademarked properties – as in the name “Ravens.”
We are racking our collective brain trying to find the right fit. It isn’t easy. There is a long list of potential names but for me, none approaches Ravens24x7.com. Maybe it is as my partners say, “my baby.”
Yet it’s time to move on and move on we will. There’s no choice really and after all each of us is defined not by how we handle success but rather how we handle adversity.
The good news is that we can still maintain and employ all of the domain names we have so your bookmarks are still good and will redirect to the newly named site, whatever that may be.
Until that time if you have an idea for a site name by all means send it in (**@pr*************.com). We will submit it to our focus group which as of this very writing is busy filtering through the suggestions already presented. Soon the focus group will select 5 finalists for our new name and we’ll then ask you to help us decide what our new name should be.
It won’t be easy. Challenges by definition never really are.
In life and in business you can’t direct the proverbial wind, but you can adjust your sails.
Sail on!
