I'd say it was more built out of the Canestime (grassy) premium board. We had great discussions and a lot of analysis there. I wrote for the site and was pretty close to the program in the years prior. D$ had connections even back then. D$'s now wife and my gf at the time are best friends. Even though we had our own places, we basically lived out of or were consistently watching sports out the same apartment for a year. We had already discussed doing our own thing. When the Lounge thing happened, I'd call it an opportunity or opening.
D$ made the move and commitment. I came up with the name. At the time, I was just beginning to get into tech startups, so I actually thought this could be a scalable concept about fans sharing pics and experiences and rating the pics for "points." Hence, CANES - IN - SIGHT play on Canes - Insight. So, imagine: Noles In Sight (and fans have a community where they share pics of themselves losing games). Anyway, that was never pursued. The message board was the driver. Some fantastic posters came over from different sites. D$ recruited @Andrew (who was on Canestime as a premium member), Peter, and others. The rest is history.