Our pal Jamie Mottram recently left AOL Fanhouse, which he created and turned into a powerhouse, for Yahoo Sports. Looks like he made the right call.
FAST COMPANY has a long piece this week on the rapid emergence of Yahoo Sports as the #1 sports destination on the internet. You heard us right, ahead of ESPN.com.
Excerpt: “Yahoo beat ‘the worldwide leader’ in unique visitors in August, September, and November 2007, according to comScore Media Metrix. In the money game, according to a private Nielsen/NetRatings AdRelevance report obtained by Fast Company, both Yahoo Sports and ESPN.com generated about $80 million in ad revenue through the first three quarters of last year.“
Those stats came before Yahoo plucked “Jamie Mottram (aka “Mr. Irrelevant”) from AOL, where in a little more than a year, he built ‘FanHouse,’ a group sports blog, into a powerhouse with 60 to 70 bloggers and 20 million page views a month. The hope is that the blog he’s creating for Yahoo incubates a breakout star akin to ESPN’s Bill Simmons.”
Mottram will be a difference-maker for Yahoo if he can build a blogger staff akin to what he did at Fanhouse. Knowing Jamie, he’ll probably do it up bigger and better at Yahoo, as we’re guessing he has more resources. So far, we’re disappointed that Yahoo Sports has yet to create a specific area on its site for bloggers, like AOL’s Fanhouse. But as the blogging staff grows, that’s a good probability.
With the addition of MJD over there now, we’re visiting Yahoo Sports every day. A first for us.
Former SI NFL writer Michael Silver, who is loving it at Yahoo, wrapped the FC piece saying, “The vibe here is not timid. We’re here to bust down the door and smack some people around.”
Slow down there, sport - sounds like Simmons & Co. are already getting a standing-eight.
3:00 pm on January 29th, 2008
Thank you for the kind words and for the choice of photo (is that a pit stain?).
And, yes, a Y! Sports “site for bloggers” (and many sites for bloggers, actually) is well on its way.
Also, I miss T-Robe.
3:10 pm on January 29th, 2008
Breaking news in the comments area, woo-hoo! A Yahoo space for bloggers is going to rock .
I’m actually a Ron McDole fan myself. I’m still perplexed how his two-bar-facemask-on-a-defensive-lineman look went out of style.
5:08 pm on January 29th, 2008
I stopped going to ESPN.com when they started having that annoying video in the right-hand corner immediately start playing when you went to the site. I’m not surprised they’re now lagging.
5:33 pm on January 29th, 2008
ESPN.com hasn’t been a bookmark for some time. TV, we’re all on it. Website, no.
It’s a shame, because there is some good stuff on there, it’s just getting there that generally sucks.
11:37 am on January 30th, 2008
I stopped going to espn.com a LONG time ago. Too many ads and then the advent of “insider” really set me off. Pay for sports news from people who don’t know any more than me? PLEASE!!