Amateur sports network Pitchero hits 1m monthly uniques – aims to cash in on Rugby World Cup

Pitchero, the UK startup that makes it easy for amateur and semi professional sports clubs to build their own web presence with social networking features, has seen a major revamp and with it is announcing a milestone of 1 million monthly unique visitors.

In addition, the network, which aggregates and links those club websites and user profiles via sport, location and competition, houses 4,000 sites overall, while in total 250,000 individual users have signed up to the service. In terms of where Pitchero is bedding down, it claims to cover 46% of all UK amateur rugby club websites and says it’s poised to cash in on this year’s Rugby World Cup (yawn) with advertising partnerships “already signed”. Other core markets are football, cricket and hockey.

As well as helping to provide that all important web presence for clubs, Pitchero members can compare match stats, read reports, post team selection and share videos and photos.

In terms of revenue, Pitchero’s business model is both advertising and premium features. The latter involves clubs paying a monthly fee for features such as ecommerce and subscriptions. While on the advertising side, major brands such as Nike and RBS have invested “5 figure-advertising budgets”, according to the company, with the aim of reaching Pitchero’s amateur online sports audience, which makes sense.