ESPN.com "hyper local" expanding to Dallas, LA, NY

You can't fake coverage. You either have the writers to cover the beats or you don't.

 

SockPuppet is a winner!!! If ESPN invests in the personnel needed for these sites, they can be winners. Otherwise, no. My guess is, they'll hire some big names, columnists, mostly, learn the facts of life about locally-based Internet advertising, and quietly pull the plug on this experiment sometime early in 2011.

 

2011, which might be about the time that plugs get pulled on papers in LA and Dallas ... for the same reason, trying to fake coverage.

 

It's not perfect, but at least ESPN is still doing good journalism and spending money on it. I'd at least give them a chance on the regional sites.

 

I think we said the same thing about that little cable tv station that started airing log rolling and Australian Rules football about 30 years ago. I wonder what ever happened to that station.

 

I wouldn't expect them to do very well in NYC. Legit scoops don't happen every day because there are multiple skilled beat writers covering every team, and it's unrealistic to expect clear dominance, or even reader perception of clear dominance, by any outlet on any beat. ESPN obviously can't duck NYC; it has to go in. But management should have different expectations there than it would in a one-newspaper market. Spending a lot of money there is unlikely to yield great results. I would guess the strategy would be simply establish a respectable presence there and spend heavily where there's a chance to win.

 

If they invest in these sites, they can be successful in attracting an audience. Since ESPN.com is not the company's main source of profit (to put it mildly), they could run the sites as prestigious, must-read sources of information-if they want to. It all boils down to how much money they're willing to spend before the possibility of profit kicks in, and it might not kick in.
I will say this. ESPN has hired a great many very talented journalists. So they are willing to produce quality if it suits their needs.

 

journo types hate the leader for good reason.

but the public trusts espn because it has defined sports coverage in this country for the past 15-20 years.

i can't imagine any scenario in which these local sites fail.

 

Frank, good point about NYC and beats.

However, with the WWL's national sources in the major sports, could those help whoever is hired to cover the Big Apple? Sort of the momma bird feeding the baby birds before they can fly.

 

weirdly, this thing reminds me, of all things...of The National. That daily sports paper died because of distribution problems -- as well as a host of others -- but that won't be an issue here. no print to worry about, no delivery trucks, no local agreements with papers. it's got all the chances of being virtual National; all they have to do is ax the mag, throw all the long pieces on the web in the way they do so well, and hire locals to fill the gaps that newsprint has ceded and compete with them on the rest. maybe frank deford had the right idea -- but the technology didn't exist yet.

 

Anybody have any insight as to what the organizational structure is like? Is there a Chicago-based editor/manager calling the shots. Will ESPN have somebody in Bristol that is in charge of all the local sites?

What about the "ESPN affilliated" college sites that are popping up? Who is in charge of those and how are deciding what colleges to target?