Sports fans and non-sports fans can rejoice, as designers of a new social media platform are looking to change how we talk about athletics.

Fancred is a new site that provides a digital outlet for users to share their sports memories. This means that users don’t have to sift through personal details about what people had for lunch that day, and the non-sports enthusiasts do not have to deal with game commentary they couldn’t care less about on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Hossein Kash Razzaghi started the site about two years ago. He said he used sports as a tool to integrate into American culture after immigrating to the United States, and he would collect memorabilia such as jerseys in a shoebox.

“I wanted to take that whole essence of collecting and bring it into the digital world,” Razzaghi said.

Fancred gives users the option to sign up with Facebook or email, and from there pick the teams they want to follow. Fancred suggests a list of other people, teams and agencies a person may want to follow based on his or her interests, according to Razzaghi.

“Our goal is to try to connect you with a likeminded fan,” Razzaghi said. 

Emily Bailey, a senior studying communication, said she heard about the site after receiving an email inviting her to apply for a position as an NC State community leader for Fancred. Since August she’s worked with the Fancred team trying to create a name for them on NC State’s campus.

“We have to do weekly meetings, and we have a bunch of flyers, stickers and t-shirts that we give out and games and stuff,” Bailey said. “I’ll post on my Twitter or even my Instagram, ‘Here download this app,’ but you know how people are, they won’t really do anything unless you talk to them one-on-one. So then after seeing the stickers and passing out koozies, I didn’t even have to ask people to sign up…”

Bailey said she thinks Fancred will continue to grow, especially since the ACC just joined Fancred at the end of last September.

“Even apps like Pinterest and Instagram, it took them at least a year to grow, but Fancred is already implemented a little bit in our school, and I feel like at NC State we’re very spirited whether we win or lose,” Bailey said. “They’re very into everything about the game, so I feel like if we move it to just this app, people can post their opinions or experiences, then it will just grow tremendously.”

The growth might start with basketball season, because people use social media to talk more about basketball given the absence of tailgating for the sport, Bailey said.

“Fancred is about building a platform for fans to capture their sports memories, and we’re hoping they can use it to build a fan profile for themselves because we experience sports all the time together,” Razzaghi said.

Part of that profile involves getting Fancred points for activities such as posting, commenting and attending sporting events in addition to others liking and commenting on the posts.

The points fluctuate from a scale of one to 100 based on an algorithm designed to determine what types of fans users are, instead of how great of a fan a user is, according to Razzaghi.

“You’re trying to get your ‘fancred’ up, and I don’t know of any other social media site that does that,” Destefano said.

During the first week someone logs onto Fancred his or her score tends to stay low, so users try to get people to add them, and they keep posting to get more points, according to Bailey.

“It’s fun because it’s kind of like a little game, because you can get your points, so it’s competitive like a sport.” Bailey said. “Me and my roommate, she’ll be like ‘Oh I have 30 points, and you have like 29,’ and we’re always trying to get people to like our stuff; it’s kind of funny.”

Posts on Fancred range from GIFs to videos to pictures where users tag their locations, according to Bailey.

“I even post things about my day sometimes, like ‘Oh I have two tests, I wish I was at a football game,’ and people will be like ‘Oh good luck on your test, us too, we wish we were at a game,” Bailey said. “It’s a community within people you follow.”

Destefano said she tends to run into famous athletes, so her Fancred profile often consists of photos such as the one she posted of her and TJ Warren.

In the future, Razzaghi said he hopes to reward users with a lot of Fancred points with discounts and tickets to athletic events, but that’s still in the works. Other future plans include expanding the application.

“I envision a day where it will be a complete app, not just social, but also where you can get high scores and watch games,” Razzagi said.

To sign up for Fancred or to learn more, visit, www.fancred.com.