ESPN may not be running the Blog Buzz segment on Sportscenter anymore but don't be fooled: the World Wide Leader embraces the blog format.
Consider TrueHoop's evolution at ESPN.com over the years. In 2007, ESPN effectively launched into the blogosphere by purchasing Henry Abbott's award-winning NBA blog and running it on their ESPN.com NBA frontpage. The sports media empire quietly and swiftly crossed the mainstream/blogger party line but ESPN.com readers certainly had reasons to be skeptical about the integration. Did ESPN have any clue how to harness the power of a successful independent blog? Where would it go? What does it offer? Why should we pay attention? Who is Henry Abbott? What is a blog anyway?
At the time, Henry Abbott was a one-man show ambitiously setting out to be the one-stop shop for all things NBA. If there is one thing bloggers are known for, it is their ambition. However, it's one thing have the ambition to corner a niche market such as amateur photographs of obscure NBA jerseys; it's another to try to capture an entire sport in one vessel. Abbott has reached that goal by picking up quality contributors along the way.
In January of this year TrueHoop announced the launch of the TrueHoop Network, signaling the partnership of ESPN with the very best independent blogs of each NBA team. The TrueHoop Network bloggers may lack media-passes in their mother's basements, but they certainly make up for it by offering obsessive in-depth analysis that few credentialed writers can compete with. ESPN gave the bloggers a mic and the bloggers returned the favor with free quality content.
Abbott changed the blog landscape yet again in October by convincing his ESPN.com editors to add ESPN's NBA reporters to his TrueHoop arsenal. Chris Broussard, Marc Stein, Chad Ford, Chris Sheridan, and J.A. Adande have already contributed multiple pieces for TrueHoop as they now have a space to publish their snippets of insight not fit for a full column. In case you haven't noticed, Abbott's receiving content from every edge of the coverage spectrum.
This expansion completely changed the blog as we know it and I'm not talking about the TrueHoop blog in particular. I'm talking about all blogs. In this new world, longtime newspaper writer J.A. Adande and a Grizzlies blogger share the same stage and speak into the same mic. Thanks to Abbott's vision, ESPN has learned that good content is worthy content no matter where the voice is coming from.
After witnessing TrueHoop and ESPN's content revolution, I find myself asking the same question I asked many years ago:
What is a blog anyway?
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Thursday, November 5, 2009
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3 comments:
Tom, thanks so much for the kind words. Glad you're reading, enjoying things, and ready to give me too much credit! One key point: I didn't really convince ESPN.com to get those writers to contribute to TrueHoop. It was an idea born of a conversation with ESPN.com editors. My main job was simply to say "yes, please."
Henry, thanks for stopping by. I shouldn't have used the word "convinced" as if you baited them into it. Misinterpreted the passage in your announcement.
So, if you run ESPN.com, where do you stick those stories?
After asking that question a zillion different ways, and talking to ESPN.com's editors, I'm convinced the best place for them is right here on TrueHoop. As in, give TrueHoop new contributing writers. That's what we're doing, starting now.
How has the expansion been received? I can't imagine anyone disapproves.
For those people interested in who the Grizzlies blogger was you can go to 3sob.com.
I never miss an opportunity for self-promotion after all!
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