There's no stopping until he has his own blimp at the Super Bowl.

That's the goal Thesportsking.com's president Tom Mercadante has set for his young company.

While it might sound unreasonable, the company's Web site has grown at a rapid clip, moving from 66,000 hits and sports coverage of one city in September 2000 to 11.5 million hits and coverage of 60 cities in April 2004.

Managing the growth of the business has been a challenge for Mercadante.

"We've grown every single month," he says. "There hasn't been one month where we didn't exceed the previous month's total."

Thesportsking.com caters to sports enthusiasts looking for up-to-the-minute updates and expert predictions and opinions.

The original business plan called for selling franchises of the original site in other cities, each with its own local content to supplement the national news. Each franchisee would be responsible for providing the local news, as well as selling advertising to local businesses.

"I had my work cut out for me," says Mercadante. "I would have to put an ad in the city's local paper, make appointments and hope to hire some enterprising person that could be responsible every day to keep the page fresh and sell advertising. If they don't work out, then I have to go back and hire someone else. There was a lot of risk involved and a lot of headaches."

As the business grew, Mercadante developed a good relationship with a Las Vegas-based gaming company that was very happy with its advertising experience and the number of people it attracted through Thesportsking.com site.

"I talked to them about wanting to expand, but I really wanted to launch something substantial; I didn't just want to add five cities at a time. They came back and said, 'Why don't we just do it all? We'll facilitate it and get the site done.' They facilitated a 60-city rollout with one swing of the bat."

The content was configured to update automatically, freeing both Mercadante and future franchisees from constantly updating the site.

"Now all we have to do is go to people and tell them to sell it," says Mercadante. "It's all there. The teams and the pages are already set up and taken care of. With the partnership, we are able to advertise nationally in all of our markets and develop a brand."

He says it will be easier to fill the remaining franchises because buyers only have to handle the sales aspect and not the publishing aspect of the business.

"I'm proud of the product we are putting out. The sky is the limit to the amount of visitors we can attract and keep. We want to compete with the big boys. When people are looking for sports information, we want them to look at Thesportsking.com."