We're not the only ones doing this, we're not even the first but we think we are doing it differently and better than everyone else (well of course we would). Here in the spirit of openness, we take you through the 'rivals' to our site and let you know the alternatives:
Pros: Well they've got the name. They've also been very thorough in writing nice descriptions, explaining exactly the screen setup in the venue and including lots of nice categories like 'team bias' and 'special promotions'. The beauty is in the detail…
Cons: …because it certainly isn't in the visuals. It's pretty ugly, looking like it was designed in the 90s with an aggressive black background. It does warn you that the landlords maintain the page content and it may be out of date, which turns out to be an understatement as a large portion of the venues listed are now closed or have changed names. Pretty sure no-one has updated this since mid 2010 at the latest. However due to the name and the perpetual cycle of reaching the top of Google, it's still number one, even though it's becoming increasingly useless.
How many venues: 230 or so
Pros: Being Sky they can obviously tell you what's upcoming on their sports channels, including which is in 3D. Other than that, erm, it's very simple.
Cons: It's not really a site is it? More a little add-on to the Sky site. All you do is enter a search, which is an OK principle in itself but you have to use your postcode - fine if you're looking for somewhere near home or a postcode you know, useless if you're looking for an area you don't know that well. Which, let's face it, is probably why you'd use such a site. Also the listings are uber-basic, they don't even let you copy/paste the address or phone number. Also shows no sign of being updated regularly.
How many venues: not sure
Pros: They list all upcoming games in all sports of sports (even if they don't make it pretty to look at). They do tell you how many screens and what channels it has.
Cons: A horribly hard-to-read list of upcoming games; a bizarre selection of clipart images to represent each sport, all different sizes and including what seems to be a lads mag model for boxing; the fact you have to go through endless screens of results, selecting your sport, the game you want, then the pub, which all look the same. Apparently there's 27 pubs in the WHOLE of London showing something as big as the Manchester United v Liverpool game – and we all know there's more plastic fans than that. Then when you reach a page it continues it's ugly listings approach and greets you with a massive paragraph of description text. It's a great big mess - seriously, who chooses beige for a sport site?
How many venues: around 50?
Pros: Now this seems more like it, a bit of design applied for the first time. It's clunky in places but they've got a nice set of icons and are listing all sorts of obscure sporting events. The venue pages are incredible thorough: showing several pictures, map, opening times, channels, a long discription, features and forthcoming games they'll be playing.
Cons: Again, however, they make you pick a game before you can search for a venue: admirable if they're truly telling you where will definitely show that match but an annoying process for repeat users. Whilst they have a nice description of the place, it's pretty much just sales blurb from the bar itself, so no 'real' knowledge (something that is lacking from all but our site...). Also the fact a bar has to sign up to feature on there means you're again not getting the full picture.
How many venues: 70 or so
Pros: Great name, in fact we only found out about this as we were going to use this name. They're the only ones to really try and create a sporting theme, which is admirable. The venue page designs follow livesportsbars.tv in having lots of info and icons.
Cons: The visual design is very clunky though and a bit aggressive, including an annoying yellow card that follows you as you scroll. There's a complete lack of venues, which renders it a bit pointless. They aren't very SEO optimised so you won't find them on any search engines, meaning again, flawed.
How many venues: about 60 (though this includes test venues and some duplication so... confusing)
In conclusion: our site for showing sports bars is clearly the best, what with it being built around actual user-reviews and having over 400 locations and counting. But you probably could have guessed we'd say that. So if you think there's something we've missed about the others do get in touch...
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