There's constant chatter on these boards about how this site could be run better. Well for the first time, we have *little* bit of insight into the value of the company. As a quick bit of recent history of WIS, the site was acquired a few years back by the company SportsHub. Recently, SportsHub was acquired by the public gambling company SharpLink. The interesting thing about that is since SharpLink is public, we get alittle bit of information about SportsHub in SharpLink's public filing (included below). Specifically, SportsHub (i.e. all of their products including WIS) was valued at 6.7MM when it was acquired. Additionally, when they describe the transaction they list the various SportsHub brands, listing WIS as the 5th of 6 offerings. There's no hard and fast rule about how these bullets are listed, but *generally* they would be listed in rough order of value. So what could you buy WIS for? Certainly less than 6.7MM. I think it's fairly safe to assume guess that its no more than 1/6 of the value (1.1MM). After that it's pure speculation, but if I had to wager a guess on the little information we have, I'd say it's value is somewhere in the 300-600K range. If anyone is motivated to take control and has the capital to do so, here's a data point for you.


https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1025561/000165495423004409/sbet_10k.htm

Getting Magic Johnson on the phone now.

I'd chip into a kickstarter for the community to take over and start calling the shots, no doubt.

I'm very worried about future of WIS at this rate.

"The core rewrite has made some great progress but due to some restructuring within SportsHub we are going to change direction with updates for a time. The plan is to bring out regular, likely smaller updates to the various games but we are looking to focus on addressing some of the major pain points expressed by the community across the different games."

They have been talking about this "core rewrite" for a long time but looks like it is scrapped.

Posted by trail on 4/20/2023 4:23:00 PM (view original):
I'd chip into a kickstarter for the community to take over and start calling the shots, no doubt.

Imagine what HD would look like if it was run like a commune. I'm not saying I think it would be positive or negative, just think about what it would be like. And I mean actual working communes, with a council and a charter and all that, not the caricatures.

That's probably how it would have to look if a group of users big enough to make a serious offer was going to try to take over.

Posted by cubcub113 on 4/21/2023 10:45:00 AM (view original):
I'm very worried about future of WIS at this rate.

"The core rewrite has made some great progress but due to some restructuring within SportsHub we are going to change direction with updates for a time. The plan is to bring out regular, likely smaller updates to the various games but we are looking to focus on addressing some of the major pain points expressed by the community across the different games."

They have been talking about this "core rewrite" for a long time but looks like it is scrapped.

That post is how I ended up stumbling upon the purchase by SharpLink. It's unfortunately worth highlighting that SharpLink's financials also disclose a significant uncertainty about it's ability to continue as a going concern. That's accountant speak for, they owe more money in the next 12 months than they currently project to have. It's not super uncommon for public companies of this size but generally companies that have this will look to take non-steady stake action. Some of those could include selling assets that are unprofitable or not inline with their brand, raising prices where they think they can, shifting internal resources or simply closing poorly performing divisions. It could also mean hiring more people, doing more advertising, or working on customer retention. Given WIS looks fairly far down the importance list of Sharplink, Id worry we are getting the former, but you never know.

I always think about why this game/site always seems to be floundering. Why does it keep changing hands so much. Why are so many promises broken. What fundamentally is holding this game back from being really popular?

Its akin to that hole in the wall dive bar that seems to change owners and has a new name every couple years but is still the same old dive bar on the inside. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I feel like a proper app and an AI text to video on the box play-by-play would be something fun to watch with a Vitale voice generated for over breakfast and coffee or at lunch. Could even run an event of community watch party for the championship games

Honestly, it would probably be better and much cheaper for us to get together and hire programmers to write our own game. Something to think about...

Posted by trail on 4/20/2023 4:23:00 PM (view original):
I'd chip into a kickstarter for the community to take over and start calling the shots, no doubt.

We could be the Green Bay Packers of websites.

WIS is one of the most poorly run companies in the history of the US. Enron looks like Apple next to it. if i knew ANYTHING about programming, i'd buy it. the current group puts about 5 to 10 mins of work in a day. imagine if we got a guy to do half days?? we'd have a ton of stuff fixed. if they really want to sell it, i'd be willing to buy it for $80k-$90k. that is probably fair value.

Posted by gigrant on 4/25/2023 6:54:00 PM (view original):
WIS is one of the most poorly run companies in the history of the US. Enron looks like Apple next to it. if i knew ANYTHING about programming, i'd buy it. the current group puts about 5 to 10 mins of work in a day. imagine if we got a guy to do half days?? we'd have a ton of stuff fixed. if they really want to sell it, i'd be willing to buy it for $80k-$90k. that is probably fair value.

i need to do some math. i think i came in a bit high.

Posted by mlitney on 4/23/2023 6:27:00 PM (view original):
Honestly, it would probably be better and much cheaper for us to get together and hire programmers to write our own game. Something to think about...

i pondered this a few times. once the original owner sold WIS it started to slide. every time it was bought it slid further. now it's run by complete idiots. it would be easy to build a competitor and put WIS in the grave once and for all.

Posted by mlitney on 4/23/2023 6:27:00 PM (view original):
Honestly, it would probably be better and much cheaper for us to get together and hire programmers to write our own game. Something to think about...

I'm a software engineer with some experience in data science and machine learning. Count me in. I'd be happy to volunteer some time to contribute to such a project.

I'm playing HD for the first time in at least a decade and while it's still a reasonably fun game, I feel like it could be so much more if it had the proper dedication and support. And it honestly probably wouldn't take a whole lot to get a decent basketball sim up and running that. Of course, I would also be thrilled if someone here bought WIS and I could contribute to HD itself instead of making a whole new sim.

Does/did WIS pay for some sort of license to use the real conf and school names?