SriLankaSports.com celebrates 25 Years!
Sri Lanka's First Sports Website which was initiated by two visionary sports journalists on this day in 2000, celebrate its 25th year of existence in digital media.
On the 15th of January 2000, a domain name www.srilankasports.com was registered by co-founders Hishan Welmilla and Leonard Ratnayake, two senior Sports Journalists, as a revolutionary move to take Sri Lankan sports to the digital sphere and around the Globe.
Official Launch
Initially functioning as a hobby, the operations of SriLankaSports.com was later welcomed by the then sports minister and the officers on the 11th of July the same year with a press conference, as the team officially launched a sports promotion company SportsLine Marketing (Pvt) Ltd. with innovative concepts and activities for the development of sports in Sri Lanka.
From player management to event organizing, the team introduced many novel concepts in online sports reporting with football and rugby tournaments going live back in the year 2004 through Dialog Mobile Network.
Novelties in Sri Lankan Sports
Mostly happening in the pre-Covid era, the team introduced many events to promote and develop sports where some of them became annual fixtures, such as the Inter-Company Netball Championship that introduced a seven-a-side format, a Sri Lanka’s Under-19 Interschool school Futsal event, the SriLankaSports.com Futsal Challenge and Netball Challenges Cups, Sri Lanka’s first Day-Night Inter-Club Beach Football tournament, and the first ever Under-15 Inter-School Handball Championship are some to name.
Contributions to Para-Sport
A notable contribution by SriLankaSports.com is towards Para Sports, such as establishing 'Sri Lanka Sports Academy for Special Needs', a first of its kind last year in Matara and giving media coverage for the Paralympics in collaboration with the National Paralympic Committee of Sri Lanka over the years.
One of the upcoming innovative projects, the inaugural Bocce Ball Championship, will be happening this coming Sunday, a first time in Sri Lanka in collaboration with the National Forum of Women with Disabilities (NFWD) and the Child Trust Fund, at the Bandaragama Sports Complex.
Special Note by the Author
The Sidelines is extremely grateful towards SriLanksSports.com for entrusting a young writer back in 2021 to manage the website and social media pages as a sports writer, with the freedom to explore and experiment with new social media initiatives that saw an exponential growth of nearly 8 times the followers since joining, and to contribute towards their journey up until this special milestone.
Thank you Messrs. Hishan and Leonard, for your guidance and encouragement!