In a testament to the growing popularity and staying power of sports social networks, YardBarker.com today received $6 million in its second round of funding, according to TechCrunch. For the uninitiated, Yardbarker is an online sports community where users can upload links (like Digg) and videos and fans can read blogs written by athletes (Donovan McNabb, Baron Davis and others). Bloggers can apply to be a part of the Yardbarker Blogger Network, to showcase their content on the Yardbarker site and take part in a revenue share by placing ads sold by YardBarker on bloggers’ sites.

The ability to read and potentially interact with the professional athletes is, to me, the highlight of the site. I think calling YardBarker a “digg for sports” site as TechCrunch does in its post is a bit of a disservice. Someone not familiar with YardBarker might come to that conclusion, but it’s clear YardBarker is trying to form a community around sports with its social networking features.

We told you earlier about the sports social network for aspiring sports writers, BleacherReport, and the fact that they too had secured funding. The bottom line is that venture capital firms, but more importantly fans, are agreeing that a sports social network model such as YardBarker and BleacherReport work and that there is enough traffic and revenue from advertising and to prove growth and longevity.