I own a lot of sports sites and trying to find private advertisers is nearly impossible. So, often times you’re left with the usually Google Adsense of CPM company.

However, lately I’ve been talking about the great successes I’ve had with Football Fanatics. They pay 10% commission on all sales you make. I’ve done $475+ in sales this month and football season is just now starting. I expect sales to increase gradually over the next few months.

In addition to Football Fanatics, another great affiliate program you can use for all your sports sites is StubHub. StubHub is a ticket broker and with them you will earn 8% on all the tickets you sell. They have tickets for every single sporting event, so no matter what your website is about, it will work for you. I’ve already done 2 orders from Gator Envy and I just added the affiliate links this month.

Never rely on “the usual” monetizing methods when you’re running a sports site. Merchandise and ticket sales can bring in a lot of money.

For the past few days, I’ve slowly been working on a new Skimboarding web site called Skim Shot. Skimboarding was one of my favorite sports/activities growing up. I skimmed almost every day after school until I went off to college. If Gainesville, FL was located on a beach I would have kept skimboarding until college graduation.

For those of you who don’t know what it is, let me show you an introduction video.

It’s very similar to surfing except you run into the wave from the shore instead of just floating out there in the water.

There isn’t much on Skim Shot yet because it’s still a work in progress. I’m hoping since skimboarding isn’t that big (at least compared to other extreme sports like surfing or skating) that there is still a place for my site to grow in the skimming community. I’ve basically got the design set up, added some videos and pictures, and made a welcome post. I plan on having up to date contest information/results and even board reviews. I’ll also blog a couple times a week about what’s going on in the industry or give skimboarding tips. If traffic ever gets to like 200-300 uniques/day I’ll probably add a forum.

So check it out, let me know what you think. This is one of my newest projects so I’ll be working on it quite a bit over the next week or so.

My buddy Bob Buskirk is having a contest to celebrate his new blog design. He’s giving away over $500 in prizes. You’d be a fool not to put in a few entries. I give Bob a lot of credit. He works very hard trying to get his readership and I’m sure this contest will boost his numbers.

I’m not even sure what I would do if I won the Grand Prize. The top prize is a Stripe Ad on John Chow’s blog. I don’t have any site’s that cater to his readership and I definitely do sell any products they’d be interested in either. I could have it point back to my blog, but then I might not get all the value out of it. Anyways, I’ll think about it later.

In an effort to increase activity on Mass Effect Forums, I’ve decided to give away one of my Xbox 360 games… Assassin’s Creed. This contest is open to all members. If you’re not a member, you can sign up for free.

It’s a month long contest, and all you have to do to enter is post 10 times on the forum. It’s that simple. After the contest ends, I will select a random winner and ship the game free of charge. Assassin’s Creed is a popular game and would probably cost you $20-25 if you bought it used from GameStop or something.

Complete contest details can be viewed here.

Right now there are only 4 people who have completed the entry requirements, so you would have a very good chance to bring home the prize. I’m going to announce this contest on my Assassin’s Creed fan site as well to try and get more buzz.

I was trying to brainstorm for new blog posting ideas and decided I’d take a look back a year ago and see what I was writing about.

On August 10th I went on a 3 Day Vacation to Amelia Island. That was an awesome trip, and I am sad that I didn’t get to do it again this year. Amelia has some of the best beaches in Florida.

On August 13th I did Batch #3 of Ask David. Ask David was fun. I set up a way for people to email me questions and in return I would give them a free link back to their website. Ask David kind of died when I removed the banner from my homepage letting people know it exists! It’s still there by the way, so take advantage of it!

On August 14th I wrote a post about BUM Marketing. BUM marketing is basically pumping out articles that are stuffed with your affiliate links. I haven’t really tried this. Have you?

On August 15th I announced the launch of a new sports blog, Mugdish. Mugdish was fun for a few weeks, but then I got tired of it and sold it at auction.

So that’s what I was up to a year ago. I was pretty busy huh? I also posted on this blog a lot. That’s 4 posts in 5 days… now I’m lucky to get 1 post in in 5 days.