The Origin

What is valleysportspulse.com?

That is a question owner/president George Takata has been asked several times over the past few months. The obvious answer? It is a website. More specifically, it is a website geared towards local sports coverage in the Central Valley. In the future, though, Takata hopes it will turn into much more than that.

“I see it growing into memberships for insider stories, podcasts of games streamlined live, video coverage of big games on every level,” says Takata, a long-time sports anchor at KGPE-TV (CBS 47), who came up with the idea for his new venture about three years ago. “From high school to our pro teams, t-shirt and photograph sales, you name it. The sky’s the limit.”

But before valleysportspulse.com can fly, it needs to get its wings.

Takata knows that, which is why he does not have a time frame for his vision. He is aware of the work that needs to get done first.

“Valleysportspulse.com has a MySpace page. It has a Facebook page. It’s going to have a Twitter page,” he says. “I have a sign up at Hero’s Restaurant in downtown Fresno. We’re handing out flyers at the Central Section Championship basketball games at Selland Arena this weekend. We’ll be everywhere.”

That is certainly a good start. Now, the challenge is convincing advertisers to take a chance on an unknown.

Valleysportspulse.com is not an established local sports website such as barkboard.com or cvhspreps.com. To make matters worse, the local media has been hit hard recently with several layoffs and budget cuts.

That could be a red flag for advertisers. Takata, though, says he’s not worried.

“Because sports is the one constant everyone turns to for some good news,” he says convincingly. “This is a sports community. Newspapers are unfortunately a dying breed. Television is great, but it also has restraints. There’s no other site like this in the valley. My ad prices are extremely low. Someone said to me, ‘if you can succeed with this now, you will have a lot of success later.’ I believe that. I also believe this can be an instant success.”

He also believes he is the right person to run this operation. And why not? George Takata has lived in the valley since 1985. He has been on TV in the valley since 1996.

“People have always asked me when I was going to try and make the jump to a larger market,” says Takata. “But I’ve never wanted to leave. I’ve always wanted to do this-‘Sports Illustrated type’ of in-depth stories, ‘Central Valley-style.’ There are so many stories out there to be told, and I want to cover all of them.”

And now he can. He credits friend Chris Miller for coming up with the name “valleysportspulse.com.” But now it’s his name – George Takata – that’s all over the media kits and the business cards.

“One day, I hope to have a full-time web designer, sales staff and a reporting staff, complete with photographers and videographers,” Takata says with a smile. ‘Sportscenter on the web’ is how I see it. And it’s going to happen.”

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