Officially joining the increasingly crowded field of sites that brand themselves as sports social networks is Bleacher Report, which allows fans to write sports stories, critique others’ writings, and form a community around aspiring sports writers and their content. Their press release states the following about how the site works:

Bleacher Report removes the largest barriers that exist for fans looking to share their opinions with others. Unlike starting an independent blog, the site offers instant gratification in the form of a built-in readership. While creating a blog, promoting its content, and updating it on a daily basis to build readership can be cumbersome, Bleacher Report bypasses those obstacles, instantly exposing every writer on the site to an audience of thousands. And there is no pressure to post constantly to build readership so members can simply write as frequently or infrequently as they like.

Given that Bleacher Report has already secured series A round of funding, it demonstrates there is a ready audience and investors are willing to invest in sports social networks that utilize fan-generated content. The site seems to be gaining traction, since in the press release it claims that while in beta, the site grew to more than 400,000 monthly unique visitors and 2,000 original sports editorials published per month.