Wanna buy a Shaq fan web site?
Allan Duncan has been a fan of Heat center Shaquille O’Neal for years. Such a big fan that he started his shaqattaq.net, a fan web site, in mid-2005, when he was 19 years old.
“There was no Shaquille O’Neal web sites on the Internet,” Duncan, now 21, said via email from his home near Las Vegas. “I hated not being able to go to one website with the latest news.”
Duncan says he’s never met O’Neal, but he did give a "shaqattaq" T-shirt to O'Neal's uncle and bodyguard at a game once and eyeballed the center holding it. Although the site gets questions from readers (including marriage proposals, parents wanting shoes for kids with large feet, and autograph requests), they receive an auto reply that says Duncan doesn’t know Shaq.
But now his labor of love is up for sale on eBay with a starting bid of $5,000. Duncan says he needs the money for the helicopter school where he’s enrolled.
“I’m going to flight school and working two jobs and still have to ask my grandpa for the help each month with rent,” said Duncan, who would be willing to still work on the site, even if he’s not the owner. He said he just can’t devote the time to running it. It has no advertising and so far no bidders.
CRAIG DAVIS In more than 33 years at the Sun Sentinel, Craig Davis has written about a wide variety of sports topics from baseball to yachting, fishing to triathlons, and also worked as a copy editor and page designer. Recently he reported on local sports, including running, swimming, cycling, equestrian and beach volleyball. He enjoys sports as a participant as well as a spectator, is active in the South Florida running scene plays in the curling club at Saveology Iceplex. This blog offers a glimpse at the business side of sports in the interest of enhancing enjoyment of the games and sporting options as a spectator as well as a participant.
