SportMartialArts.com – a little idea that grew…
In 2000, SportMartialArts.com founder Emily Cooper realized that a great way for the parents of her martial arts students to be able to see what happened at tournaments was to broadcast it on a fancy thing called the Internet. She learned a little html coding and started posting photos and videos on a site called maslinc.com. About 50 people found the site after the first month. After the fifth month, the views had grown to thousands and SportMartialArts.com was born. The driving force behind the site has never been money, all of the crew have other “real” jobs that pay the bills. Everyone involved from the beginning is involved because he or she loves this sport and wants to see it grow.
Since 2000, there have been tremendous advancements in technology and huge changes to the site. The SportMartialArts.com crew has covered nearly every major sport karate event in the world and has traveled all over the world to do it. The site is now the largest site dedicated to sport karate tournament coverage and is the original and most innovative provider of sport karate information.
The site continues to grow and our coverage crew gets better each season. And, more importantly, we continue to have fun. We hope that is reflected in everything we do!
Our viewers, our supporters, our goals…
Whether you compete in sport karate events, are a parent or instructor or are just interested in the sport, SportMartialArts.com has something for you. The website is a veritable history of the sport, with photos, videos and stories that tell where the sport has been and where it is going. If you have favorite competitors, our site has probably covered them. For competitors, it is easy to find information about upcoming events, track results from our premiere events and improve yourself to get ready for the next competition.
Our goal is to be the number one sport karate coverage site for competitors, spectators, judges, promoters and parents and to make competition exciting and easy.
Who are we…
The main SportMartialArts.com crew is an interesting bunch. We meet almost weekly to brainstorm and catch up on site content as well as to see if Jeff can eat himself into a diabetic coma…
Emily Cooper – CEO – Emily is the founder of SportMartialArts.com. In her past, she has run a karate school and a tournament, used to compete in sport karate tournaments like a maniac but is now all settled down, kind of. She has a real job that has nothing to do with this website but she still loves going to events, covering the sport and trying to come up with new ways to make this sport better. You will find her at events taking photos, filming, talking with people for far too long and texting other crew members to make sure they are focused. Some of her favorite things are clouds, cotton candy, puppies and diet coke.
Jamie Cravens – The Life Coach/Online Sales Manager – Like Peter Pan, Jamie has never grown up. The difference is that Peter Pan stopped growing around age 14 and Jamie waited until age 21 so he could be legal in all 50 states. Despite Jamie’s mental ability to party like a high school senior, his body parties like his true age which is in the executive divisions. Surprisingly, Jamie holds a very prestigious full-time position with a top company. During the moments when Jamie is focused, he takes fantastic photos, captures great video footage and his tweeting from events is totes redonkulus. As the older of the three male crew members, Jamie fancies himself a Life Coach and really tries to help Jeff and Nick to become better people at the tournament after parties.
Jeff Langlois – Director of Media – After recently graduating from college, you’d think Jeff would be settled down at a nice desk job and working 9-5. Instead, he’s using his film degree skills to create awesome videos for SportMartialArts.com while working as a martial arts instructor and part-time city worker. Don’t worry, his future is pretty bright or at least not so dim. Jeff is known for spectacular things like cutting open his head with his own kamas prior to competing and missing return flights. He also gets cavity searched by TSA on about 90% of our trips.
Nick Schneider – Director of Social Media – Sometimes we worry about what Nick is thinking about when he goes into his deep vacant-stare trances. And Nick invented our favorite Twitter hash tag of #getit. When he is not getting harassed by the rest of the crew, Nick teaches martial arts and is a DJ. He’s been friend-zoned by numerous hot girls and there is a two out of five chance that he will vomit at the Quebec Open each year. When paired with Jeff, it is likely that Nick will also miss his flight home from any given event.
Ryan Johnson – Cinematographer – Ryan is the quiet one which gives the illusion that he is thinking deep thoughts. Ryan is brilliant when it comes to camera work and he knows absolutely nothing about martial arts except that people yell, kick and have beautiful hair. This makes his video work brilliant because it captures the beauty and innocence of our sport. Plus, he works for whisky presses and after parties.
SportMartialArts.com on the web…
You can find SportMartialArts.com everywhere on the web and through social media.
Facebook – The SportMartialArts.com facebook page is a great place to find special information about the site, exciting videos and information about sport karate competitors that we like to find and share. You can Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sportmartialartsfbpage.
Twitter – We love to tweet from events on our twitter account and our tweets can be rather absurd and hilarious – especially if Jamie is tweeting. Follow us on Twitter for fun and funny live updates from events – www.twitter.com/maslinc
Pinterest – Pinterest was a recent discovery and we weren’t quite sure how to use it. It is now a great depository for a lot of interesting and very entertaining posts, links and internet finds that you won’t want to miss. Follow us at www.pinterest.com/sportkarate
Youtube – Youtube totally saved us when it comes to videos. Before Youtube, we had to upload videos to our own server and had limited space. Now we can produce the highest quality videos possible and upload them for free to our Youtube account. If the internet connection is strong enough, we upload directly from the event itself so subscribe to us on Youtube and see it all – www.youtube.com/sportmartialarts
RSS Feed – You can get updates about recent story posts by subscribing to our Feedburner RSS Feed. Subscribe to our RSS Feed at www.feeds.feedburner.com/sportmartialarts
Web – Our bread and butter is our website. Find out where we will be next, see full black belt divisional results from Premiere Events and see where you stand against other competitors with our SportMartialArts.com Ratings. The site offers lots of Photo galleries from 2003 to the present, our Videos, News Stories and much more. Check out the site regularly at smdev.wpengine.com