That's right, ladies and gentlemen. . .today marks six years to the day since the first ever post on this site went live. The site is a whole lot prettier now than it was back in the early days, as you might imagine, but one thing hasn't changed, and that's the fact that we continue to work our tails off to bring you the very best coverage of our favorite football team, the Minnesota Vikings. (Oh, and not to get everyone too terribly excited, but there will be a new site redesign coming soon. . .keep your eyes peeled for announcements on that.)
This site, much like the rest of SB Nation, has come a very long ways since it first hit the internet. In terms of SB Nation overall, this site was number 60 in the entire network to come online. Of the 60 sites that SB Nation had at the time, this was the eleventh dedicated to a National Football League team, and the third from the NFC North (Windy City Gridiron was the first SB Nation NFL blog, and Pride of Detroit was on the network for a little bit before we came along). Now, SB Nation has grown to over 320 sites, and is one of the biggest sports networks in terms of traffic on the internet. . .and is growing faster than pretty much any of them.
As far as this site itself? Well, I think anyone that's been here for a while knows exactly what we've done over the past few years. At the start, basically the only people that were reading were Mrs. Gonzo and I. The first month that this site was online, July of 2006, the page as a whole had 865 hits and 2,095 page views. To contrast that, in our best hour today, the site got 518 hits. But it's not just the level of traffic that shows how far the site has come.
Over the past couple of years, we've gotten press credentials to Vikings home games. We've had folks covering Training Camp (and will have people there again in a few weeks). We've had folks at Winter Park covering the NFL Draft (and scarfing copious amounts of free pizza, apparently). We've inspired people that ordinarily wouldn't do so to sit around the warm glow of their computer and listen to a bunch of blowhard politicians talk for hours on end in the hopes of getting a new stadium. . .something that we officially realized exactly two months ago today when the final bill passed through the Minnesota Senate.
We've had a lot of ups and a lot of downs during the time this site has been online. Playoff wins, playoff losses, the Brett Favre circus, the greatness of Adrian Peterson, stadium roof collapses, and all sorts of other strange, crazy, and wonderful things. It has been a tremendous honor and a huge privilege to be able to share all of that with you folks out there. The best part is that we're not going anywhere. Personally, I plan on being here until either you all are sick of listening to me. . .and by "you all," I mean "Vikings fans," since the opinion of anyone else pretty much doesn't matter. . .or they drag me out of here kicking and screaming.
I think I speak for everyone on the current staff when I say that we know we're a part of something special here, and the main reason that we're a part of that something special is because of all of you out there. Obviously, for the most part, you enjoy what we're doing. . .if you didn't, SB Nation would have replaced all of us, starting with me. But, as the cliched old saying goes, you like us. . .you really, really like us. That's all that matters. Sure, there will be people out there that hate the site, hate us, hate me, what have you, and that's fine. In their defense, anyone that hates any of those things is probably not terribly bright.
In the end, this is something that I love doing. This is something that we love doing. And we're going to continue doing it for you folks out there, and we're going to continue doing it better than anybody else. If it weren't for all of you men and women out there, there wouldn't be any Daily Norseman, and there probably wouldn't be any SB Nation, either.
As always, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for making this site everything it has become to this point, and for staying with us even when things haven't been the rosiest for this football team. Our patience and loyalty will be rewarded, whether anyone outside of this fan base thinks so or not.
Yep. . .six years we've been here doing this, and I know that I'm looking forward to the next six. And well beyond.