The company that drew the focus of our second-ever business profile is now on the open market.

“When I founded the company in 2003, my exit strategy was to build up the site to the point that it could be sold or acquired,” TheFantasyFootballTimes.com founder Greg Bebezas told FSB.com. “At the time, I had the opportunity to get involved in the emerging fantasy industry, and six years later, with the industry continuing to grow and gain mainstream recognition, the time is right for me to move on.”

Bebezas said the duties related to his consulting business as well as family considerations have led him to the difficult decision to part with his fantasy site. He said that he would like to get a deal completed before the coming football season kicks off but, though he concedes that is a pretty tight frame within which to work.

He said that the company has been appraised in the range of $25,000 to $30,000 based on Web traffic and revenue but that he is willing to listen to best offers or sell off separate pieces such as the member database, specific technology applications and domains — which include thefantasyfootballtimes.com, fantasyfootballtimes.com, fantasyfootballtimes.net, thefantasyfootballtimes.net, fftimes.net, thefftimes.com, thefftimes.net, thefantasybaseballtimes.com and fantasybaseballtimes.com.

“The company has many assets on both the business and technology end that offer immediate value to those already involved in the industry,” Bebezas said. “The site has Google rankings on the first two pages for multiple industry terms — including ‘fantasy football,’ which makes it very attractive to other industry companies looking to expand their reach and also newcomers looking to gain immediate visibility without taking much risk.”

(Our Thursday night search turned it up at the top of Page 2 as the 11th link under “fantasy football.”)

Bebezas said the primary proprietary piece of software is the content engine behind the homepage, which draws content from “any news source from around the Web,” sorting and publishing its findings into keyword categories. Other specific information is available via the site.

“When you start up something like this and use a lot of your own sweat equity, it makes it harder and harder to part with,” Bebezas said. “I have to make tough decisions on where I can spend my time and what makes the most sense for me professionally and personally going foward.”

Interested parties can also contact Bebezas at gbebezas@thefantasyfootballtimes.com.

Company: TheFantasyFootballTimes.com
Site: www.thefantasyfootballtimes.com
Founder and CEO: Greg Bebezas
Lauched: 2003
Full time: 2003

What do you do if you’ve been playing fantasy football for about a decade and you feel like punishing yourself with a startup business? If you’re Greg Bebezas, you jump on the Web and launch a fantasy-content site.

“I had been involved in fantasy football as a consumer since 1992, so seeing the continued growth of the fantasy sports industry over the years, I decided that the time was right for me to get involved on the business end,” Bebezas says. “I had always wanted to go into business for myself and this was the perfect opportunity for me to finally do so.”

Bebezas made the most of his involvement in an entrepreneurial business program at the time and developed a plan for what soon became TheFantasyFootballTimes.com. He says that his desire was to provide strong fantasy football content and present it as cleanly as preseason magazines, which he says other sites at the time were failing to do.

Bebezas threw mostly his own funds — along with some private-investment capital — behind the venture and launched in 2003. He concedes that his background as an architect didn’t do much to prepare him for entry into the fantasy sports industry or the business of running a website, and there were some early struggles. He calls his chief technology officer, Chris Jewer, “instrumental” in delivering the company to its current state.

“Web-based businesses can’t be successful without a concerted effort from both the business and technical sides, and we’re constantly working together to grow and adapt the company,” Bebezas says.

The latest outgrowth is “My FF Times,” a social network that’s debuting for this season and is free to join. The point of the network is to create a community of fantasy football players who can view each other’s rosters and offer suggestions on things such as trades and player pickups. Just like with major social networks, participants in My FF Times can add other users as friends, or in this case “teammates.”

Although such roster recommendations and peer advice have long been occurring via message boards and forums, Bebezas believes My FF Times makes it easier for people to connect and share information. The community, for instance, allows users to enter multiple lineups, so that all of their players can be visible at all times (rather than the often-problematic and tedious method of copying and pasting your roster into a message-board post).

“The driving force behind providing an environment like this is that we know there are a lot of knowledgeable fantasy players out there that can help each other win,” Bebezas says.

In addition, TheFantasyFootballTimes.com continues to provide its annual online draft guide (cost: $9.95), which has twice earned a spot as a finalist for a Fantasy Sports Trade Association award. The site also offers “No Huddle News,” a feature added in 2007 that funnels football content from various other sites through the Fantasy Football Times homepage. Bebezas says this quickly became the most popular destination on the site.

“This has all been part of an ongoing effort to give our users a combination of free and premium tools and resources that help them find the necessary info and expert content they’re looking for without spending hours on end,” Bebezas says. “From the beginning, I’ve felt that building a brand, a good reputation, and gaining credibility within the market was of great importance for a content provider like us.”

Business partners of TheFantasyFootballTimes.com include Mock Draft Central, Jostens and SportsBuff.com, which is owned by the same company that owns this site (and for which I also write).