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Page Sponsorships Overview

Common Questions below

Pro-Football-Reference.com relies on a combination direct user support and limited MarketPlace advertising to pay the bills and support the work going on here. Now your support can go directly to specific pages of content. It is our way to both recognize you for your support and also allow businesses to receive something in return for support they provide to the site.

How to sponsor a page

In order to sponsor a page, you need to:

    Short Version
  1. Get a membership account.
  2. Go to the page you wish to sponsor and click on the "sponsor" link in the colored box. For multiple sponsorships, see below.
  3. We will walk you through how to make a payment and how to set up your message.
  4. Pending our approval of your message (usually within 24 hours), your sponsorship will then appear on the site.
  5. If you want to sponsor multiple pages using a single payment, total the price of the pages and send a single payment.
    Long Version
  1. Sign up for a membership with Pro-Football-Reference.com and Sports-Reference.com. It is free and quick. You are logged in automatically after creating an account and cookies allow you to be recognized when you return to the site.
  2. On each page that accepts sponsorships, there will either be a colored box containing sponsorship message or a colored box stating the page is available. To sponsor an available page you need to click on "sponsor" within the colored box.
  3. We will then step you through the sponsorship process.
    1. How to add funds to your account, if needed
    2. Confirm your intent to sponsor the page, and
    3. Enter a new or choose an existing message for your sponsorship.
  4. We accept payments in a variety of ways and mainly through trusted third parties like PayPal or Amazon. When sending money, please sign up for an account first. We can then easily credit your account immediately for a payment.
  5. If you created a new entry, we will read it and approve it, and then your sponsorship will appear. Please note the approval process may take a day or two if traffic is especially heavy.

Privacy Policy

Common Questions

What pages can I sponsor?

What is an entry?

An entry is the text that appears on a page or set of pages you sponsor. You can have different entries for different pages or the same entry for everything. You can also edit entries or change which entries you use on different pages.

Example Entry

Entering These Values:

Link Title (up to 50 characters)
Link URL (up to 255 characters, leave blank if not needed)
Message (up to 255 characters)

Would produce

Baseball-Reference.com sponsors this page at Pro-Football-Reference.

You can sponsor a page.
        See all of Neon Deion's baseball stats.

Can we put anything into an entry?

Yes and no. Entries don't have to point to another website. They could just be a fan sponsoring their favorite player, or the entries can point to any (non-porn, non-offensive) website within our guidelines. You can put any type of message that fits our guidelines. All entries will be screened before appearing on the site and we reserve the right to reject any entry for any reason. We will, of course, refund your money if an appropriate entry can't be found.

Why don't my entries appear immediately?

As a matter of policy, I approve all entries before they appear on the site. This is true of new entries or entries that you have edited. I try to do this as often as possible, so there will be little lag between your creation of an entry and its appearance on the site. But on occasion I may be away from my computer for a few days, so it could take some time before your sponsorship appears on the site. To account for this the sponsorship's expiration date for new sponsorships is extended for an extra seven days in all cases.

How much does it cost?

The price to sponsor a page (or set of pages) depends directly on the popularity of the page. The vast majority are $5 (the minimum prices).

Why different prices?

The prices are roughly set to match an advertising rate of $2.50 per 1,000 page views with a minimum charge of $5. From there it goes up for more popular pages. I feel getting your name on Barry Sander's page should be reserved for the largest sponsors.

Can I advertise a website or product this way?

Yes, you may, but the guidelines apply.

If my player pulls a nutty and belts a referee, can I switch in mid-year?

Generally, we will not allow switching, but you can e-mail us if a special case comes up.

Can I have this player every year?

Yes, you will be given the option to renew a player before anyone else gets a shot. It is, however, possible that a player could rise in cost as the site or player becomes more popular. Server expenses go up as the site becomes more popular. Sponsorship Renewals Policy.

Are you getting rich off this?

Not really. We are receiving enough support to cover server costs which are quite high for a sites this popular. Of the extra money I earn, some of it compensates me the site owners and some of it is used to expand the site. We are always looking to add new features, etc. All those take time or money, and we find myself increasingly short on time.

Why do some of the player pages have no sponsorship info listed on them? (No sponsorship is shown, but I can't sign up for them.)

These pages have been chosen by someone, but we have not yet approved their entry. This will usually take one or two days at the most.

A question not answered here or unclear? Please e-mail any questions or comments you might have.