ETBLITZ.COM | How did it start? Why is it free? Chances are, you’re using their services every day!

Started my sportswriting career 31 years ago.

The news media has evolved to the point that newspapers just aren’t the same as they were; a lot of people just don’t pick up the paper and read it like they used to.

Sometimes we do. Sometimes “picking up the paper” is picking up our iPhones; sometimes, it’s sitting down at the desktop. Sometimes, it’s logging on to the .com edition of the local paper, or the New York Times, or whatever.

Just over three years ago, I began to think about what would it be like if an East Texas media outlet existed like that, one that brought people sports news without boundaries of a freaking “paywall:” a subscription service, be it “$9.99 a month,” or whatever the price is. Look, I don’t begrudge them, guys: it’s their business plan! They have to make money to pay their employees! I mean, they still earn their living. Those are good people who do hard work. It’s not easy sitting through governmental meetings, covering trials, covering hard news like car wrecks.

I’m not being facetious about this. It’s not fun work. It’s not.

Now, here’s the deal.

I have a different business model.

I decided not to ask you for your money.

I decided to go to business owners and – well – ask them for their advertising budget money. I just thought that, if they advertise with us, people will see their ads, thousands and thousands of you guys, and you’ll frequent their businesses.

We’ll keep doing our jobs. We’ll keep covering Kilgore, Kilgore College, Sabine, Overton, West Rusk and Leverett’s Chapel, as I have for 22 years. And then we’ll add programs like Henderson, Gladewater, White Oak, Tatum, Arp, and Troup – that’s huge. That’s a winner. That’s East Texas. That’s – ETBLITZ.COM.

That’s how the idea for this website started.

A few very, VERY key advertising parters came on board, and on Oct.20, 2023, ETBlitz.com was launched.

It was great – for a month and a half, and crashed on Dec. 1 (the night that Kilgore faced Chapel Hill at Longview’s Lobo Stadium).

We panicked, for about an hour.

Benjamin Dunn, our server host whose location is in Parts Unknown (a very, VERY large city nowhere NEAR here), rebuilt things ultra-quickly, along with the help here in Kilgore of our own Clayton Fletcher. Myself and Joe Hale kept covering the game.

We got the site back up in an about 90 minutes during the game, actually, and have not crashed since.

We finished 2023 with well over 500,000 hits.

The year of 2024 built steadily throughout, with summer being slowest, of course (no school), and then picking up as we progressed throughout football. The month of December, with Kilgore High School making its run to the state football championship game, saw ETBlitz have its then-strongest month to date: 657,667 hits, and a year of 3.2 million.

The site actually went past that 657,000 mark just over a month later when we covered the UIL Spirit (state cheer) competition in Fort Worth, and almost hit that mark again when Overton made it to the state title game in baseball in June. ETBlitz.com added Carthage, Beckville and Pine Tree to its coverage area this past summer, and we had our most successful month ever last month, November, 2025, over 730,000 hits during the football playoffs.

In 2025 alone, 5,516,486 hits, and 452,963 unique visitors. And since the launch of ETBlitz on Oct. 20, 2023, a rough estimate: 9.3 million hits to ETBlitz.com.

We’re pretty proud of that. And we owe it all to you, East Texas.

We don’t charge for this site. We don’t do a paywall. We just have you guys into the house – wipe your feet and come on in. There’s none of that subscription stuff. We don’t do that, either. We do have advertisers, and we’d appreciate it if you’d give ‘em business. They’re good folks, and they live here, too. They cheer Kilgore, and Henderson. They do cheer Carthage, too. They root for Sabine, and White Oak. They’re people you see working at the West Rusk concession stand. They might be a Gladewater track mom, or a Leverett’s Chapel band booster and parent. They’re an Arp cheer mom, a Troup basketball dad, a Pine Tree volleyball dad or even a Beckville baseball grandmom.

But we’re coming to the end of 2025. It’s state championship week in football. Basketball and soccer are on the horizon. We hope you’ll stay for the duration of the school year. If you don’t like what you see, and think we can do better, let me know it! My name is Mitch Lucas and I’m the editor and publisher of this outfit. You can get me at mlucas@etblitz.com. And if you DO like what you see, let me know that, too, because I love to hear it!

Here are our advertising partners, every one of them.

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