CHEYENNE – A big part of this venture is networking.

Last Saturday, we met roughly 44 Wyoming fans and alumni at the “Cowboys in Colorado” breakfast at Johnson’s Corner restaurant in Johnstown, Colo.

Associate Athletics Director and head of media relations, Tim Harkins, spoke to the crowd there for a good 30 minutes. What did we learn?

  • The “Voice of the Cowboys” Dave Walsh has committed to three more years – at least – in the booth.
  • When the Pokes host the Idaho Vandals on Sept. 14, the school will officially honor the Black 14. Of course, that’s the 14 African-American football players who were kicked off the team by head coach Lloyd Eaton for wanting to wear black armbands to protest the practices of the Mormon Church, who owns Brigham Young University.

I had always heard about this group that meets up in Colorado. We appreciated the invite and are excited about a couple of joint opportunities that may come in the future.

A new cowboy saddles up
We are beyond pleased to announce that Torrington's, Martin Gubbels, has joined 7220sports.com as our head marketer -- and residential do-it-all guy.

Aside from being a great guy and gigantic Wyoming fan, Gubbels is also well versed in the business of ... well, business. And we need that. Gubbels is the former owner of Big Sky Ford in Torrington and has worked side by side with a guy you may have heard of by the name of Dick Cheney.

The Carroll College graduate is also a member of the Cowboy Joe Club Board of Directors and is a former Ford and Lincoln 20 Group chairman and a member of the Wyoming Automobile Dealers Association.

This guy is tuned in and we couldn't be happier to have him with us. Follow him on Twitter @BigSkyFord or email him at gubbels.martin@gmail.com

Opening day tailgate party
We don’t have the location nailed down quite yet – or most of the specifics – but 7220sports.com will be throwing a fan appreciation tailgate party before the home opener Aug. 31 against Missouri.

What we do know is Rock Ranch Grill and Café 307, two of our awesome sponsors on this site, will be cooking some grub from their breakfast menu in the morning and the lunch/ dinner menu in the afternoon. Kickoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.

The second they let us in the parking lots in Laramie, we will set up. Rumor has it we will have some giveaways, too.

We have awesome sponsors. Hope to see you all there.

Podcast is coming soon
Anyone know how to set up miles upon miles of wires into mixing boards and other contraptions that make me insane?

OK, it’s not that bad, but I am still in the process of putting together a studio, camera and the equipment.

We want to make sure we can get a phone line working, too. We have some awesome guests that have agreed to come on and talk Wyoming/ Mountain West Conference sports. I’m trying to coax Tom Izzo into coming on. I think we all deserve an explanation why he won’t bring his Spartans to Laramie …

Racking up the miles

Since February, we have traveled to Montana, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and most recently, Pueblo, Colorado to track down former UW players and coaches.

It has been a blast. Of course, talking with Fennis Dembo, Mitch Donahue, Dana Dimel and others, has been a thrill. We hope you have enjoyed the articles that have followed.

We figure that is roughly 5,000 miles.

That’s like driving from San Francisco to New York City and all the way back to Salt Lake. Crazy to think about.

By the numbers
OK, I’ll be the first to admit I am a little stunned when I look at the numbers. Mainly because we are new and it’s the “dead time” in college sports around here.

We have averaged roughly 8,000 site visits a day. Yes, 8,000. Wild, huh?

Our most read stories go like this:
Dembo feature
Trio of football players leaving program
LaDainian Tomlinson and Drew Brees nearly coming to UW
Dimel feature
Donahue feature
Who wore it best? No. 7 on Josh Wallwork

That series has been really solid so far. I did the same series when I covered Michigan State and averaged about 850 views a day. Through 17 numbers, we are averaging about 1,500 per day.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

The cities with the most readers go like this:
Denver
Cheyenne
Casper
Laramie
Rock Springs

The states with the most readers go like this:
Wyoming
Colorado
Texas
Utah
California

We have even gotten some hits from 19 different countries, including Nigeria, Egypt, Grenada, Ukraine and Belize. Are you guys on vacation?

On Facebook we have 1,852 followers.

On Twitter we have 835. That’s been a little slower going, but this week we landed 66 new followers and had 22,580 impressions.

Follow us @7220sports on Twitter and Facebook at 7220sports.com. If you like what we are doing, please “invite” your friends to give us a like and a follow, too!

Once again, we want to sincerely thank you for reading and interacting with us through the first month of operation.

We want to promote your business
We are very fortunate to have some great companies on board with us right now

  • Rock Ranch Grill (Pine Bluffs)
  • Café 307 (Pine Bluffs)
  • Automatic Garage Door (Cheyenne)
  • Hometown Printed Apparel (Douglas)
  • Laramie Peak Motors (Wheatland)
  • Coldwell Banker (Cheyenne)
  • Tactical Xteriors (Casper)

We would love to get the word out about your company.

Our advertisers are already being seen. Thanks to one of our California readers, Hometown Printed Apparel is decking out an entire insurance company with new polo shirts. That was awesome news to get just two weeks into this.

If you would like to join us, email me at cody@7220sports.com or call 307-359-2476.

Are there any artists out there?

We have a unique opportunity to paint a wall. The owner of Sanford’s in Cheyenne said he will give us an entire brick wall just off Warren Avenue and 16th Street downtown. It’s one of the busiest intersections in the state. We were thinking a UW mural would look pretty sweet right there.

Imagine all the photos being taken in front of that during Frontier Days?

So, we are looking for an artist and a company to commission the artwork. Our cartoon guy, Chad Blakely, hates heights. I can’t blame him. I do, too.

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