Today we’d like to introduce you to David Frerker.
Thanks for sharing your story with us David. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
As a freshman at San Diego State University, I was extremely passionate about sports. One of my friends and I came up with the idea to create sports fan groups for SDSU. It began with the now named “Official SDSU Basketball Fan Group.” The goal was to promote SDSU’s main sport and give fellow fans a place to talk/pass information. That information could be news about the team, injury reports on players, game threads, fan photos and so much more. As that group began to take off, we created now named “Official SDSU Football Fan Group.” The group was used to pass along all of the same content, as stated above. However, I started writing blog posts within the football group.
Through a friend of a friend, I was introduced to a long time TV personality Rod Luck. Rod Luck would love what I was doing and asked me to become a weekly contributor on his ESPN San Diego Radio show that aired every Saturday. I would come on for a few minutes to discuss what was going on in the world of San Diego State Sports. I was even invited into the studio for a few shows. This would go on for about six months until Rod went off air due to a medical procedure.
Shortly after my stint as a contributor on Lucks radio show. I was approached by FanSided. FanSided is an all-inclusive sports lifestyle and entertainment network that consists of more than 300 websites (NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, Boxing Etc). They had a struggling San Diego State Website that they wanted me to take over. I became the lead writer & editor of Surf The Spear (SDSU Sports Blog). Under my tutelage, STS went from 100 views to 60,000 views in just six months. Due to differences in opinions between myself and FanSided. I decided to move on from FanSided and create my own all-inclusive sports blog.
San Diego Sports Domination was born in June of 2012. A few friends and I met in an empty classroom on the campus of San Diego State University. I wanted SDSU only as that is what I knew the best. Another friend wanted to cover just the San Diego Padres. Another friend wanted to just cover the San Diego Chargers. The San Diego Union-Tribune was just beginning to put in place the paywall forcing readers to pay money for content. Based on everyone’s opinions, we decided to create an all inclusive sports blog and keep it free.
SDSD, for short was focused on writing articles and doing interviews with opposing team blogs. Then we received our first media credential in 2013 to cover the San Diego Flash Soccer team playing in the NPSL. The team was owned at the time by Clent Alexander. Alexander was on the forefront of soccer in San Diego. He knew how powerful a blog could be in helping get fans to games. Covering live sporting events became an addiction for us. We began to reach out to other semi-professional sports teams in the San Diego Area asking to help provide those teams with coverage. We have covered almost every aspect of semi-pro sports that San Diego has to offer (ABA, NPSL, Pac-West Football, WPSL and LDFL Football).
We built on our success of covering semi-pro sports in early 2015 when a PR Firm for USA Rugby reached out to us and asked us to cover the Eagles run into the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. I got to visit the Eagles training camp at the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center and interview players to build my story. This opened the world of Team USA to us. Now on the Team USA Press List we got to cover events such as the Road To Rio San Diego pit stop, 2016 USA Olympic BMX Trials and Rugby Friendlies between USA and Canada. We grew to include coverage of the San Diego Chargers once we obtained press credentials to attend Chargers Training Camp and practices. We have covered every level of sports from High School Football to Olympics.
San Diego Sports Domination had been awarded two blogging awards up to 2018. One from Our City San Diego, naming us off of the Top 10 Blogs in San Diego (Only Sports Blog). The other from E College Finder, naming us one of The Best College Sports Blogs in America (Only California Sports Blog to win). Both online publications have fallen to the wayside.
Now to the present day. In 2019, we changed how San Diego Sports Domination operated. We moved away from writing and moved towards visuals. Instead of posting a few photos from a sporting event, we now share between 50 -100. The fans and athletes we cover love this. We covered 150 + events last year (High School Football, Major League Rugby, National Lacrosse League, Labelle Developmental Football League, National Arena Soccer League, Alliance of American Football, SDSU Marching Band, SDSU Cheer, SDSU Dance, Women’s Premier Soccer League, SDSU Club Water Polo, National Premier Soccer League and Indoor Football League). Our event coverage brought in over 260,000 views to our website. Four times the amount of normal traffic.
I have also been named Team Photographer for the San Diego Silverbacks (LDFL), So Cal Surf (WPSL), and San Diego Strike Force (IFL).
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It is never a smooth road when you start a new blog. You have to put in thousands of hours of your time to grow the blog and grow your audience. When I had taken over Surf The Spear for FanSided… I was writing between 7-10 times per week on average. At one point, my team was pumping out three to five articles per day.
From the Social Perspective, you have to create and grow new social media accounts at that time (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google + and Instagram). Normally when dealing with social media for brands, you want to build one account at a time. That is something that I didn’t have the luxury of doing. It takes time to draw in fans to a new brand when you don’t have a budget.
Creating San Diego Sports Domination was much easier because we had an established fan base who wanted to follow us over. Plus Once we hit 1,000 fans on Facebook and Twitter we spent less time focusing on capturing new fans because those accounts had been established and started drawing in new fans, that allowed me to spend more time on content creation (Creating Podcasts, Writing Articles, Covering Events ETC).
We have had our ups and downs. We had a deal in the works with Xtra Sports 1360 to host our own in studio SDSU Sports Talk Show. The same week that our deal was to close… Xtra Sports bought the rights to air SDSU content in San Diego leaving us without a show. So we put our heads down and get back to work. You cannot think about these things as what would the show have become or where would we be now? You cannot feel bad for yourself in these types of situations. You need to weather the storm and persevere.
Please tell us about San Diego Sports Domination.
San Diego Sports Domination is a full-service sports blog. We cater to San Diego Sports Fans and San Diego Sports Athletes. I have a degree in Journalism Emphasis in Media Studies from San Diego State University. My goal is to provide journalist grade sports photography and coverage to San Diego Sports Fans.
I would say we are known more for our sports photography than our writing as stated earlier on in this interview we covered over 150 sporting events in San Diego County in 2019. We did that with two photographers and two writers. Our photos have been linked to SB Nation Blogs, San Diego Legion’s Website + Social Media, San Diego Sockers Website + Social Media (Filled in twice as Team Photographer), WPSL Website + Social Media (So Cal Surf Team Photographer), San Diego SeaLions WPSL Website, Rugby Blogs, Major League Rugby Website and Social, Various Major League Rugby Team Websites, USD Baseball Website, Big West Baseball Website and many more.
One of my images of the 2019 Major League Rugby Championship Game was nominated by the Seattle Seawolves as the 2019 Sports Photo of the year. One of my high school football images was also nominated as a prep sports photo of the year. Both nominations not in any official capacity but cool in its own right.
In 2019 we began covering the San Diego Strike Force of the Indoor Football League. They did not have a team photographer, so we supplied them photos from every home game. Following the season, I was asked to join the Strike Force as the Team Photographer. An opportunity that I have since jumped at. My professional growth as a professional sports photographer grew from my website.
I am happy to say that we have helped jump-start a few careers in the sports and entertainment fields. One of our past writers now works in Social Media for the NFL and one works as a reporter for NBC. Not saying we are the main reason these people are now working as pros. We helped launch them to the next level.
We are a blog that runs off of hard work and no pay. None of our writers or photographers are paid to work for us. We sink in about $500 to $1,000 per year to keep our website running. We run in the red every year. We do this because we love sports. We want to build our resumes. We want to build our portfolios. We want to build relationships and life long friendships. Everyone knows this upfront and then decides if that works for them. They get in what they put in. I have spent eight years building this brand. It’s something that I take very seriously.
San Diego Sports Domination is run in my free time. I work a 40-50 hour a weekday job. That is what pays the pills. San Diego Sports Domination is my passion.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The following qualities are most important to my success: Persistent, Relentless, Professional, Goal-Oriented, Detail Oriented.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sandiegosportsdomination.com/
- Email: SanDiegoSportsDomination@Gmail.Com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sdsdomination/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sdsdomination
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SanDiego_Sports
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2x4-jIHcVBYAfbnELye4XQ/videos
Image Credit:
1st image of myself is by Don De Mars Photography. Rest are courtesy of San Diego Sports Domination CEO David Frerker.
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