Another Yahoo hire?

I've talked with Kevin before - many years ago - although not about boxing. Was very helpful, very knowledgeable, good digger of info.

 

Iole is an excellent reporter who really knows boxing.

 

The R-J is not terribly upset he's leaving. Management was getting fed up with him dragging his feet on the UFC/MMA beat, which he has a personal distaste for even though it has surpassed boxing in popularity. Of course, now that Yahoo is paying him to do so, he'll embrace UFC like it's the love of his life, which is what he did with boxing many years ago simply because he want to yank the paper's premier beat from an aging repoter once Iole's old beat (hockey) dried up. This is good news for the R-J and for Joe Hawk, who can now further mold his department, something I've been anxious to see happen.

 

He knows what he's told. Boxing promoters and managers are so desperate for coverage they ring his phone off the hook. I would dare anyone to come up with an easier beat than boxing in Las Vegas. Every other paper in the country that covers boxing does so once a week with a notes package. Every time the Las Vegas paper has a report, it's a scoop, and publicists are bending over backwards to provide every little update. He was a great reporter by default.

 

Yahoo hired this one based on reputation. Kevin has a glowing reputation for sure. And if Yahoo hired him to cover UFC, look out. He'll get beaten like a drum because of the way he stiffarmed Zuffa for years and big-timed them like he was the one who ran the R-J sports department. Whoever replaces Kevin on the R-J beat will kick his ass on UFC, and therefore lead the nation on the subject. I guarantee it. UFC HATES Iole. Nobody is happier he's at Yahoo than they are. Now the biggest thing in Vegas can actually get covered in the local paper.

Not that I know anything about this ...

 

As painful as it is to agree with blondebomber, I agree with him in that this will eventually make the R-J better. I never cared much for Iole and the lack of UFC coverage. Was he also still doing golf at the R-J?

 

Where does Yahoo Sports rank in the web universe of Foxsports, CBS Sportsline, ESPN, SI, Sporting News?

 

I like their columnists.
Josh Peter and Dan Wetzel always bring it, and it's free unlike ESPN.com where you have to pay to read Peter Gammons and Buster Olney.
Which makes no sense because you can turn on the television and see both Gammons and Olney on three different shows on any given night..

 

Well, you're paying to see ESPN's guys on those shows so it seems pretty similar to me.

What makes no sense is Yahoo hiring a boxing writer. They obviously know more than I do because I had no idea there was any clamoring whatsoever for boxing content out there.

 

How much traffic does Yahoo get that's not connected to mail or fantasy? It's a well-known site but not essential.

 

I use Yahoo for mail and fantasy sports but I also use the My Yahoo as my homepage with tons of RSS feeds. For sports stuff, I go to Yahoo sports before ESPN or anywhere else just because of how simple their site is designed. It is easy to find stuff there. But do I go there to read specific writers? No...at least not like I do when I go to espn.com.

 

That's not the point, though. Yahoo is not a sports-dominated site. It's an all-purpose one, unlike ESPN.com or CBSsportsline.com, which are solely devoted to sports.

I check Yahoo every day -- for fantasy, for news, for maps, for movie/TV listings, for travel bookings, etc., etc. So in that way, it is essential. And because I'm already there, I check it for sports, too ... and I'm very satisfied with their sports coverage. They have all the mainstream news via AP, they now have top-notch commentary from their stable of writers, and it's still the quickest to load/easiest to navigate, among the "essential" sports sites out there.