Project:
KnightsFans.com

Development team:
Ken. M. Wilson, Scott Murdock

Project Description:
The Kansas City Knights are far and away the best and the best-managed team in the fledgling American Basketball Association (ABA). We here at Syphon have been die-hard fans since way back when we first heard rumor in 1999 that the ABA was re-forming and we crossed our fingers that Kansas City would get a team. Our loyalty was solidified when we attended the very first Knights home game back in December 27, 2000. We have been continuous season ticket holders since the beginning and with one unfortunate exception in early 2001 at least one of us has been present courtside at every single Knights home game ever played.

Because we are such nuts for the team, it was getting very frustrating for us that we were having so much difficulty finding information about the team and the league. Normal player transactions would take place but we'd have no idea who the new ones were or where the old ones went. The Knights would go on the road and we'd have to wait sometimes up to a couple of days to find game results anywhere, and usually it was just a score and little else. One day the frustration became too much, and we decided we had to do something. If we could not find the information we wanted, we could become THE source of the information we wanted. Grabbing a domain name we had registered a year earlier but never got around to doing anything with, we set to work. After a little less than 1 week working in our spare time we created KnightsFans.com.

We presented the site to Knights owner Jim Clark, on the gamble that he would like it enough to start sending us updates about the team that we could post. The appreciation he and the entire Knights management had for our efforts went far beyond our expectations, and they have since adopted it as an official alternative site and keep us constantly in the loop. They were thrilled that we took it upon ourselves to step up out of nowhere and provide them a new channel of communication with the fans.

Browsing through the site it is easy to see many of the features that go into it: a sortable roster system, bios, stats, a score archive, a press release system, interactive games, and so forth. The site also has a wireless version that is accessible at the same URL through any web-enabled cellular phone. The wireless version allows you to browse scores, thumb through the schedule of upcoming games, scan the roster, read news articles, and even play the same daily trivia game available on the traditional web site.

The site also comes with an administrative area not visible to the outside world. This area includes custom-built tools for entering and maintaining each season's game schedule, entering/editing game results - including all stats by player, and posting articles. There is even a wireless administrative interface that we use to broadcast announcements and to provide live score updates on the site for home games in progress. At any Knights home game if you look closely you'll spot one of us, with phone in hand, punching in numbers at the end of each quarter keeping the web site up to date.

Now you know how we spend our evenings. :)


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