The Metro Sports Report began with a simple idea six years ago and succeeded beyond our wildest imagination.

Now, sadly, it's time to say good-bye.

Here's the simple truth: The Metro Sports Report is broke and going out of business.

Today is our final day of operation, although we'll continue to post a few stories in the next few weeks and months to meet some obligations.

We'll have stories on the Kirkwood Community College sports teams for the rest of the 2015-16 school year, fulfilling our contract with our good friends at Kirkwood.

We'll also continue to post stories about the Linn-Mar families and their complaints about the Linn-Mar football program and school administration. Those serious complaints now rest with the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners and we'll see the story through to the end.

Aside from that, we're done.

We held our first meeting in June of 2010 to discuss the possibility of launching a sports website that would offer extensive coverage of the seven major high schools in Cedar Rapids and Marion. Over the years, we added Cedar Valley Christian, Kirkwood, the Kernels, Coe, Mount Mercy and the RoughRiders.

We wanted to cover more teams and expand into Iowa City, but we've run out of time and money.

We were confident that we'd find a receptive audience in the community for our stories and pictures, but the numbers astound me as I type them in today. We've had 633,622 users, a total of 2,140,583 sessions and 5,387,053 pageviews as of 1:45 p.m. Sunday.

You must admit, that's a lot of readers.

Unfortunately, we were never able to make a significant connection with the business community in the Metro area in terms of advertising support. And believe me, we tried just about everything.

I'd like to personally thank all of our fine sponsors through the years who kept us going. But the truth is, we've operated on a shoestring since Day 1 and now that shoestring is frayed and broken.

We covered our last high school event Saturday night in Des Moines when the Xavier Saints won the Class 3A state basketball title. It was a great victory for Xavier and a fitting farewell for the Metro Sports Report.

We have placed the Metro Sports Report for sale, so if anyone would like to pick up the baton, please let me know.

We also plan to keep our popular Photo Gallery in operation for all of the families who would like to purchase pictures, perhaps from the Xavier basketball game Saturday or perhaps other pictures that could be used for high school graduation gifts this spring.

Our photographers plan to shoot more events this spring and post their work on the Gallery, even though we will not be staffing those events with writers (except for Kirkwood baseball and softball).

It's been a great ride for all of us at the Metro Sports Report. We've enjoyed making new friends and we take great pride in having made a positive contribution to the community.

It's impossible to thank all of our tremendous staff members in just a few cold words in print. Rest assured, we'll have a wake at my house and offer a final toast to the dear beloved Metro Sports Report.

Job well done, friends.

As they say, all good things must come to an end, and this is essentially the end for us.

Please feel free to contact me, Jim Ecker, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The phone number is (319) 390-4236.