Blogger Interviews: Busted Coverage

We're running a segment here at The Big Picture where we'll interview some of the biggest names in the sports blogosphere. What's the point? Well, these guys spend countless, thankless hours writing, so a little recognition from time to time is well warranted. Think of this as the blogger's version of a reach-around or something.

Gotta fun one today as Joe from Busted Coverage joins us. Busted Coverage is bringing you anything but the Xs and Os -- ranging from good college football finds to hot chicks that are far more entertaining than sports. Joe work his ass off to bring you plenty of content daily, so make sure you have at it in the comments.

1. The rundown:

Name: Joe
Location: Ohio
Occupation: Work in newspaper industry
Favorite team: Baseball (Reds), Football (Bengals)
Favorite posts(3-5):

The Alison Stokke Cal Photo post was a huge moment for Busted Coverage. For some reason not much had been written about Stokke and she was half way through her freshman year of college. One day I was looking through Flickr and about shit when this image popped up. It was the first Stokke college photo posted on the Internet and I found it. It was a huge ego booster.

The 7 Scariest Women At The Olympics was great because it hit the front page of Digg and was on sites around the world. It was a highlight of this year's sports blogging of the Olympics.

The Tim Tebow doing the Heisman was a quick post but one of my favorites because of how lucky I was to find that photo which was buried in some blog about a family who was with the Tebow church in Asia. When the photo was discovered the sports world had no idea Timmy was even overseas. That photo quickly spread across the Internet and started at BC.

Time spent per day blogging/reading blogs: 4-5 hours blogging. 2-3 reading.

2. Busted Coverage is a go-to spot for sports, booze, and especially trim. How do you balance the posts ranging from sports to hot chicks in sports to hot chicks that are loosely-if-at-all connected to sports?

This site isn't supposed to be about Xs and Os. If people want that they will visit the great sites like ESPN, The Sporting News, SI, etc. I refer to BC as "sportstainment." Visitors will find something that they won't see on SportsCenter, like Cuff 'Em.

There is no real theory into balancing things. There is no rule that says every post has to be related to sports. Isn't that what made the Internet great? If we wanted to follow rules then working 9 to 5 for the man seems logical.

3. BC links to some of the best stuff around. How do you find some of these gems? Scour the depths of the Interwebs? Get emailed in tips? Do tell.

The initial way to making the site successful was opening up the Daily Dump to anyone. And I mean anyone (within reason). Bloggers were and still are encouraged to send in links. Sharing traffic with guys who are busting their ass only makes sense.

As for how to find gems, the secret is to get your ass out of bed very early and beat everyone to the punch. Sleep is pretty overrated if you want to be successful in this business.

4. The chicks you post about or link to are just absolute dimes! But they're like unknown hotties. And we know porn and hot chicks 10 times better than the next guys. Where are you finding these ladies? Any good sites we should check out when we're all alone? (Links, please!) And you whack it like three times a day, yes?

The women just somehow find their way to us. Sites such as CelebSlam.com, GorillaMask, CamelTap, on205th all do a great job providing me with images. There is also a pretty high level of scouring to 'discover' chicks. The Central Michigan 18-year-old that popped up recently became a huge hit and I cannot even remember how it all happened.

I'm not really into mainstream women. Most of the beautiful women featured on the site have never appeared in a movie, magazine or football sideline.

5. The 2007 Sports Blog of the Year tournament was a brilliant idea and fun before you gave us a No. 16 seed and put us up against FanHouse you fucking asshole. (Kidding. Sorta.) Can we expect a 2008 edition?

Great question! Of course there will be a 2008 edition. Bloggers really took to this idea and things went pretty crazy over a 3 week period in 2007. It was a transition period for me and Busted Coverage. The site was originally called Big Ten Tailgate but lawyers had an issue with that name. Within three weeks of being shut down Busted Coverage was pretty much a known name throughout the sports blogosphere.

I actually want the SBOTY Tourney to be a pretty big fucking deal. Bloggers, no matter what they say, want to be recognized for being idiots who post Erin Andrews photos. The tourney is a great way to end the year.

If you are lucky we'll get you a 15 seed.

6. There are all sorts of wonderful blogs out there. A few you'd recommend?

TV Tan Line is one of my favorites and is pretty much an unknown. Scott does a great job with screen grabs. It wonderful to not have to read, just look at the photos.

Fire Joe Morgan, of course. Great writing.

I'm always reading what Matt has to say at With Leather. The guy can write unlike most of us.

Awful Announcing is great for a fix of sports media news.

I'm not a huge blog geek. There are things like eating dinner, watching the Daily Show and dating that usually eat up my time.

7. Most rewarding parts of blogging? Most frustrating?

The rewards come in the mail and must be cashed at a bank. I am amused by people who get into a business and act like it's not about money. Bullshit. I took my father to the USC-OSU game in L.A. with money from this site. It was a great father-son moment and wouldn't have been possible without BC.

But in a real sense this blogging stuff opens up so many doors in life. I would have never had contact with certain people if this blog never happened. I would have never been mentioned on a cable TV show if not for BC. It sounds pretentious, but I really think people are looking for a little recognition in life.

Seeing your site name on Sports Illustrated can help one's ego. Knowing that your site is being looked at by some pretty friggin' important people is amusing for a guy who grew up in Small Town, USA. There was no golden spoon.

The frustrating part would be the lack of sleep. Getting up any later than 6:30 a.m. is not an option.

8. Dream job? Go.

Owning an Internet blog publishing company and putting together a team of 5-7 people (with sites) capable of sharing my passion for blogging.

9. What's the ultimate goal of your site/your writing?

I want the site to continue its current growth pattern. BC has set new visitor highs the last three months.

I also would like to take the site on the road more often to big sporting events. The Kentucky Derby, an SEC football game, an MMA fight, etc. would be great events for BC fodder.

11. It's hard to get a new site off the ground, and coming to the blogosphere in 2007, BC was already entering a world with established sites. How'd you carve out a niche and start getting good traffic?

By making friends. It sounds simple and is.

I also started getting good traffic by not dicking around with Xs and Os. Again, Internet readers have a trigger finger. If it's more than three paragraphs it better be an award-winner because it's off to another site for many of these people.

And if one is to be successful, I've said it before, be prepared to write your ass off. It's like being a car mechanic. You can't just work on one car a day. That just doesn't cut it. The guy isn't going to feed his family with that work ethic.

12. You're having dinner with a college football coach, a famous athlete and a smokin' hot babe. Who are they? Why? And, hey, where are you having dinner?

The college football coach would be Mark Mangino. Just to watch him pound the food. It must be a sweet sight.

The athlete would be John Daly just to watch him pound the beer.

And the hot babe would obviously be Erin Andrews. After reading about her breakfast eating habits I can only imagine dinner.

Dinner would be at a hibachi just to watch the cook's face when Mangino and Daly are followed by Erin Andrews. Sake bombs for everyone!

(Past interviews; also found on right sidebar: Dawizofodds; Matt Ufford; The Mighty MJD; Jamie Mottram; The Big Lead; The Cavalier; Will Leitch; Dan Shanoff; Dan Steinberg; Brooks; Unsilent Majority; J.E. Skeets; Henry Abbott; The Dugout; NFL Adam; Bethlehem Shoals; Orson Swindle; Big Daddy Drew; Brian Cook; Awful Announcing; JoeSportsFan; Matt Mosley; Chris Mottram; Dave Lozo; Christmas Ape; Jason Gurney; Hugging Harold Reynolds; Rick Stiles George.)