Sporcle

Sporcle is a trivia website which allows users to take quizzes on a range of subjects using the web or a mobile device. Sporcle began operations as an online trivia website, launching on January 30, 2007, and expanding into the pub quiz business in 2013.

Sporcle
Sporcle's logo
A typical Sporcle quiz layout, for the quiz 'US Presidents.'
Type of site
Quizzes, Trivia, Pub quiz
Available inEnglish
OwnerSporcle, Inc.
Created byMatt Ramme
CEOAli Aydar
URLwww.sporcle.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedJanuary 30, 2007 (2007-01-30)
Current statusOnline
Content license
Copyrighted

The Sporcle website was started in response to website founder Matt Ramme's desire to learn trivia and his accompanying frustration that there was no existing website suitable for his needs.[1] Users can play and make quizzes on this trivia quiz website, which hosts close to one million user-made quizzes that have been played over 3.8 billion times. According to Ramme, the name of the company is inspired by the words sports and oracle.

The company's headquarters are located in Seattle and the Detroit metro area.[2]

Sporcle.com

Gameplay

Some games on Sporcle require the user to name all of the items within a given subject—such as presidents of the US, Best Picture Oscar-winning movies, or countries whose names are also legal words in Scrabble. Quizzes may also be clickable, have pictures and slideshows, be in crossword format, or involve a map.[3][4]

Players can play quizzes alone, with or without a timer, challenge other users with their scores, or compete against other users in live showdowns. Quizzes come in eight game types: Classic, Clickable, Grid, Map, Multiple Choice, Picture Box, Picture Click, and Slideshow, each of which can be played in a variety of ways, including Minefield, Forced Order, or entering the answers in any order. The type and method by which users will complete the quiz is chosen by the quiz creators.

Categories

The games on Sporcle fall into 15 categories: Entertainment, Gaming, Geography, History, Holiday, Just for Fun, Language, Literature, Miscellaneous, Movies, Music, Religion, Science, Sports, and Television. Each category has a number of sub-categories as well. Geography and Sports are the most played of the categories.

As of June 2020, the site has over 900,000 quizzes (both published and user created) that have been played a total of over 3.8 billion times. The site reached 500 million plays on April 23, 2011,[5] 1 billion on April 12, 2013,[6] 2 billion on October 15, 2016,[7] and 3 billion on April 2, 2019.[8]

To date, the most popular quiz on Sporcle is "Find the US States - No Outlines Minefield", created by user mhershfield, which has been played over 34 million times.[9]

Appeal

Despite Ramme's expectation that Sporcle would appeal to older users, students also use the website.[1][10] From October 2010 to 2017, Sporcle featured a 'College Rankings' competition on the site's home page, which tracked students registered on the site from a variety of universities, and ranked the top 100 schools according to their weekly usage of Sporcle.[11] Sporcle quizzes are embedded on Mental Floss,[12] ESPN, various SB Nation blogs,[13] and hundreds of other sites, and are played by thousands of different users.[14][15][16][17][18]

Membership

Registering on the website is optional and free, but only members can create quizzes, have their playing stats tracked, earn accomplishment badges, and comment on and rate quizzes.

On October 13, 2016, Sporcle announced an optional "Sporcle Orange" subscription, where users can pay a monthly fee for additional functionality and the removal of advertising.[19] Sporcle's Vice President, Derek Pharr, said in a forum comment that "all the features currently offered will remain free."[20]

Badges

Released in September 2014, Sporcle added badges that require users to fulfill certain goals, such as requiring users to complete tasks on specific dates and play specific quizzes to fulfill the requirement. Sporcle continues to add three new badges weekly, with examples ranging from 'Time Bandit' to 'Shiver Me Timbers!'.

To date, Sporcle offers over 1,100 badges, which have been collected over 30 million times.

Multiplayer

Sporcle has three different types of multiplayer activity: Showdowns, [21] Live 5, [22] and Trivia Bingo. [23] In showdowns, you go head to head with another Sporcle user to answer as many questions on a quiz before the other user can answer the same questions. On Live 5, you are given 5 questions and you have 4 options to choose from on each question. In Trivia Bingo, you try to get Bingo by clicking on the square on the board with the answer to a given question, while competing against other users.

Making Quizzes

All users are able to create up to 50 public and 250 private quizzes per month. Public quizzes can be seen and played by any user. Many are reviewed by Sporcle staff members, and have the possibility, if deemed worthy, of being featured on the front page.

Quiz Publication System

Every day, at least 13 new quizzes get featured on Sporcle's front page.[24] This includes 9+ quizzes from various categories and types, in addition to 4 'Daily Dose' quizzes at the bottom of the day's section, which are always Word Ladder, Missing Word, Quick Pick, and Get The Picture. These quizzes follow a similar format to all other quizzes in their category, and often involve wordplay. All published quizzes are subtitled with a custom blurb (often a pun of some sort) on the front page. All publishes are handpicked by Sporcle's admin team.

Picks

Sporcle also has Editors and Curators. These users have the ability to 'pick' user-created quizzes they deem worthy of being on their respective category and subcategory pages.

Sporcle Live

Sporcle hosts live pub trivia nights in 33 different US States.

History

In 2009, Mark Adams, now Sporcle's Vice President of Live Trivia, founded Motor City Trivia. The business expanded to the Toledo, OH area as Glass City Trivia. Both eventually merged into Great Lakes Trivia in 2011.[25]

In 2012, Great Lakes Trivia agreed to become a part of the Sporcle family, with the first shows as Sporcle Live taking place on January 2, 2013.

In January 2020, Sporcle acquired Stump! Trivia and its related assets from NTN Buzztime.[26]

Beginning in March 2020, as COVID-19 mandated the shutdown of bars and restaurants nationwide, Sporcle Live began to host online trivia in various formats. The company hosts hundreds of virtual trivia nights on Zoom every week, with participants paying $5 per device they use to join the game.[27] The company also hosts Sporcle Live! On Air, which streams live on YouTube a few times every week and is free to join.[28]

Categories

In addition to weekly general knowledge trivia,[29] Sporcle Live hosts themed trivia nights for players interested in specific topics[30][31] as well as in partnership with events like Motor City Comic Con.[32]

Sporcle Live also hosts private events[33] and puts on an annual trivia convention known as TriviaCon. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, TriviaCon was initially postponed, and on April 23, 2020, cancelled.[34]

Haymaker Public House

Sporcle opened a sports bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called Haymaker Public House.[35][36]

Mobile apps

In 2010, Sporcle released an iPhone and Android application with 250 games, though it has since been expanded to include any compatible quiz.[37][38] Sporcle also has an Alexa app.[39]

Sporcle Live has an iPhone and Android application to help live trivia players find nearby trivia nights, RSVP to events, and access visual rounds.

In April 2020, Sporcle introduced an iPhone and Android application called 'Sporcle Party' for group trivia play. The app features various categories of trivia, with the categories of Odds and Ends, Movie Maniac, and Geography Buff available to all users. A variety of other categories can be purchased through the app.[40]

References
  1. Aucoin, Don (2009-06-16). "On top of the world". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2009-06-22.
  2. "About Sporcle". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  3. "How to Make a Basic Slideshow Quiz | Sporcle Blog". July 1, 2013.
  4. "How to Make a Fantastic Map Quiz | Sporcle Blog". February 10, 2014.
  5. "Meet Our Contest Winner | Sporcle Blog". May 3, 2011.
  6. "One Billion and Counting: Wrap-Up | Sporcle Blog". April 26, 2013.
  7. "TWO Billion and Counting | Sporcle Blog". September 16, 2016.
  8. "Sporcle Hits 3 Billion Quizzes Played | Sporcle Blog". The Sporcle Blog. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  9. "Popular Published Quizzes All Time". www.sporcle.com.
  10. Loza, Josefina (2009-06-15). "What We Are Playing: Sporcle.com". Omaha World-Herald. Archived from the original on 2012-05-27. Retrieved 2009-06-22.
  11. "Sporcle ranks colleges based on use". Yale Daily News. 2011-02-18. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
  12. "Mental Floss". mentalfloss.com. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  13. Yeboah, Kofie (2017-01-17). "Rajon Rondo said no one remembers the 2015-16 Kings, so Seth Curry tweeted a Sporcle quiz". SBNation.com. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  14. "Sporcle – Seattle Thunderbirds". Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  15. Henderson, Ellen (2011-01-31). "Five Quizzes for the Geek Family at Sporcle.com". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  16. Nolasco, Joanna (2011-06-01). "Sporcle website scores big with trivia quizzes". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  17. Paul, Lauren. "21 Sporcle Quizzes That Are Still Driving You Crazy". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  18. DURSIN, MARK. "LOOKING FOR AN ENGROSSING WAY TO WASTE HOURS?". courant.com. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  19. "Announcing Sporcle Orange - Sporcle Blog". 26 September 2016.
  20. "Sporcle Premium/Subscription - Upcoming Features". Retrieved 2017-05-21.
  21. "Sporcle Showdown - Real-time trivia matchups". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  22. "Sporcle Live 5". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  23. "Sporcle's Trivia Bingo". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  24. https://www.sporcle.com/
  25. "The Accidental Trivia Business: Ten Years and Running | Sporcle Blog". The Sporcle Blog. 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  26. "NTN Buzztime Signs Definitive Agreement to Sell Stump! Trivia for $1.4 Million". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
  27. Roettgers, Janko. "How Sporcle followed trivia fans from bars to Zoom and built a $2.5M business". Protocol. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  28. "Sporcle YouTube channel, now hosting Sporcle Live! On Air". Retrieved 2020-05-13.
  29. "Bar trivia serves up competition with a twist". www.candgnews.com. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  30. Baetens, Melody. "'Golden Girls' trivia night heading to area bars Oct. 20". Detroit News. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  31. "Sporcle Live Theme Nights". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  32. "Sporcle Live Trivia". Motor City Comic Con - May 17–19, 2019. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  33. "Live Trivia Events for Companies and Parties". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  34. "Sporcle's TriviaCon - April 2020". www.sporcle.com. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
  35. "Haymaker Public House | Current Magazine". www.ecurrent.com. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  36. "The Bar Trivia Connection - How the Arena became the Haymaker Public House". Ann Arbor Observer. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  37. "iPhone app". Sporcle Blog. 23 February 2010.
  38. "Sporcle is now on Android!". Sporcle. Sporcle, Inc. 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
  39. "You Can Play Sporcle With Alexa Now". mentalfloss.com. 2017-06-02. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  40. Dirks, Brent. "Host Your Own Virtual Party Game with Sporcle Party". AppAdvice. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
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