Whether you know it or not, the sports blog genre has reinvented the way sports news is presented and distributed by main media. In case you’re unaware of some of the most influential folks who continue to advance that process, here they are:
(Murderer’s Row Minus Stirrup Socks)
Rick Chandler, Will Leitch (buy his new book) and Jamie Mottram: Established the genre as a paying profession.
Mike Florio: With a superhuman work ethic has gone from obscurity to the NFL’s most influential media member. And completely on his own terms.
Greg Wyshynski: Does the impossible: Makes me care about hockey.
Spencer Hall: If Pete Maravich was a sports blogger.
Matt Hinton: Funny, insightful, responsible.
Tommy Craggs: Literary bent too often missing in new media.
Jason McIntyre: Captures the pulse of the fan.
Kevin Kaduk: Serious journo who made seamless transition to proficient and entertaining baseball blogger.
Paul Lukas: Athletic Aesthetics? Yep, I’m there every day. Hidden gem.
Geoff Shackelford: Flagship indie golf blogger. Also see Steve Elling and Alan Shipnuck and Ryan Ballengee.
Henry Abbott: NBA fan? An absolute must-visit every day. The best.
Dan Steinberg: First and still best sports blog on old media (WaPo) site. Pioneer.
Richard Deitsch: Flagship online media blogger.
Jay Christensen: If you’re a college football fan and you’re not visiting him daily, wakeup!
Over the years I hired a lot of people to write for SbB. My process of hiring bloggers was a lot like those massive cattle call tryout camps MLB teams do once a year at the local high school. All that matters is radar gun and stopwatch.
Same thing when I was plowing through thousands (literally) of Craigslisted resumes for SbB writer hires. In 2-3 grafs you can see if a person either has an ability for it (think live 90 mph+ arm) or not.
There’s probably a good chance you, sadly, haven’t heard of all of the aforementioned bloggers. That’s not their fault, they have a skill that every sports fan would appreciate. Unfortunately, many of the main sports media sites somehow still embargo their brand of relevant sports entertainment.
A great example of the damming of the sports blog genre is the situation at Yahoo.
Jamie Mottram has assembled the finest collection of talent since the advent of sports blogs. If you go to Yahoo.com’s homepage, you’ll often see stories written by those Mottram hires directly linked. But if you go to the Yahoo Sports page, the link to the main Yahoo Sports Blog area is buried. (For a time there was no link to the main Yahoo Sports Blog area on the Yahoo Sports main page.)
Mottram also created AOL Fanhouse, which turned into a traffic monster thanks to the sports blog content Mottram hires created. Then in a nonsensical string of events, AOL allowed Mottram to go to Yahoo while rebranding its Fanhouse property into its main sports site.
Why on earth would you allow the guy who created the property you’re now showcasing to leave?
The answer to that question is the new Fanhouse, which is now staffed by a collection of old media and newspaper hires. The site now in no way resembles the cutting edge content that Mottram has since recreated at Yahoo Sports Blogs.
Nothing against the print folks who landed at Fanhouse, but if I want content with an old media sensibility, I’ll visit ESPN.
It is nice to see that Yahoo corporate though isn’t making the same mistake AOL did in letting Mottram go. He’s now overseeing all of the Yahoo blog genres thanks to the success of his sports blog venture with the company.
But again, if Mottram did a good enough job with Yahoo Sports Blogs to get a major promotion within the company, why is its home page almost impossible to find on the front page of Yahoo Sports?
Sports blog content from the writers I mentioned above reminds me a lot of the story of Apple. Steve Jobs has never consulted customers on what he thought they might want. He creates awe-inspiring pieces of personal technology that people don’t even know they want.
That describes the best of the sports blogs. So many people would absolutely love the content if they only knew it existed.
5:56 pm on May 15th, 2010
ditto on Shackleford…the best golf blogger out there…and I have been around the game for 55 years.
6:13 pm on May 15th, 2010
Thanks for the nice piece and great photo! I am fairly new to this media and wanted to share I enjoyed your approach. Seems like alot more to this whole system of blogging. You may enjoy a work of mine, sojournsports.com
6:33 pm on May 15th, 2010
Blogs like this keep me interested in sports as I like the opinions and news stories
With that said, it is becoming annoying seeing blogs become TMZ’ish with news…..
They seem to want things whether or not they are truthful because they are better stories….which I don’t want
6:36 pm on May 15th, 2010
I love Lukas too. I’ve always been fascinated by uniforms and what not for some reason.
7:31 pm on May 15th, 2010
The first sports blog I read was Awful Announcing. Brian did a great job with his site, but recently trimmed down on the work and the506 has really taken over with that type of blogging. There will be only one Awful Announcing and when it was at it’s peak, I defy anyone to find a better blog.
9:01 pm on May 15th, 2010
whatever happened to Awful Announcing? it just fell off one day
12:53 am on May 16th, 2010
This list is so far from complete it’s scary. There are many, many prominent bloggers that you’ve left out. And expand your reading beyond Yahoo and AOL. There are far better blogs out there.
1:32 am on May 16th, 2010
Full disclosure: I’m a coder for y sports.
Every page on Yahoo Sports has a link to the blog for its league. Every team page from the 4 US pro sports has a module and page devoted to blog posts for that team. Every league home page on y sports has a blog module promoting recent posts. The top story module up on the top of every league home page contains a mix of stories from the wire, yahoo “expert” authors, and yahoo bloggers.
If the blogs seem buried to you, it’s only because you’re mesmerized by all the advertisements and search trends and toolbars, etc. etc.
1:37 am on May 16th, 2010
Lest you not forget one of the most influential;
Eric G. Satterwhite
www.ericgsatterwhite.blogspot.com
11:56 am on May 16th, 2010
taf,
I was referencing links to the main Yahoo Sports Blogs page, not individual posts or organized by sport.
I invite anyone to try to find Yahoo Sports Blogs main page. There is one tiny link on the Yahoo Sports page.
For awhile there was none.
12:03 pm on May 16th, 2010
Aaron,
“There are many, many prominent bloggers that you’ve left out.”
Who they are? I could’ve probably added another 10-12 ppl who I like, but the ones I listed are who I read and get the most out of every day.
“expand your reading beyond Yahoo and AOL”
I was using those two sites as mere examples of the lack of acceptance of sports blog content by main sports media sites.
That the non-sports areas of those sites (like Yahoo.com’s front page editors) actually showcase Yahoo Sports Blogs more than the Yahoo Sports Editors.
And of course, the Yahoo front page editors cause the blog posts that they link to be seen by countless millions more readers than anything linked anywhere on the Yahoo Sports front page.
Guess I didn’t make that clear enough.
Bottom line: Editorial content folks who aren’t working in the sports biz tend to accept sports blog content for what it is: sports news that is relevant but also entertaining. (Which pretty much describes SbB.)
3:49 pm on May 16th, 2010
excellent list……a couple new ones for me…….thanks brooks.
1:23 am on May 17th, 2010
Yes, you left out an S ton of other blogs, but you can only wipe your ass so many times b4 you bleed. What I do want to point out is that you only had 1 local or regional sports site on the list, and that is what eventually (now) people are going to want to read about. If your a native San Diegan (which is hard to find), you could give an F about the Yankees, the Giants or the Islanders, or St Johns hiring Stevo Lavin. They would want to hear about the Chargers & Padres and the college teams in that town, none of which have ever won ANYTHING!
Point being that yeah national blogs and sites are the most viewed, but w/ the local newspapers going to S (most of their websites are S as well), local sports TV segment maxing out at 90 seconds, and those local talking heads on the sports talk stations that will put on any reh-tard (in the words of Zack Galifianakis in The Hangover) to fill their 3 or 4 hour time slot, there is a huge hole that needs to be filled.
Don’t be surprised if small independent sites start popping up here and there, (and I’m not talking about sites that are backed by conglomerates like SB nation or Yardbarker), that give ESPN, Comcast and FOX Sports city and regional sites a run for their money.
Here are a couple of examples in San Diego & Chicago:
San Diego- www.619sports.net
Chicago- www.312sports.com
2:03 pm on May 17th, 2010
Amen on Jay Christensen’s site. There is always good stuff there presented in a user-friendly format.
4:05 pm on May 17th, 2010
Great List, Brooks. I think Jim Bankoff [SB Nation], Gary Vaynerchuck [Vaynermedia] and Amy Martin [Digital Royalty] all deserve nods here. If we’re talking about “reinventing” sports media, these three belong in that category for sure.
And if I may humbly submit Blogs With Balls as being a catalyst of the ongoing reinvention - by putting everyone in a room together (1/3 of the people on that list as a matter of fact - including BOTH mottrams), that’s where we put what’s possible into action.
9:31 pm on May 17th, 2010
Brian Cook of Mgoblog
4:07 pm on May 18th, 2010
It’s sad that Florio’s name is on there. The only thing that makes him different from a teenager who likes to post BS NFL rumors is the fact that he is a lawyer.