Can ESPN go local? Or is this rival sniping?

You're right. I'd guess the reason local papers what to distinguish the two is to sell to local advertisers. Obviously ESPN doesn't care how readers get there or where they are from.

 

ESPN will have a hard time making the local sites work if they can't find people to write a better column than this poorly written one about the Trojans...

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/columns/story?id=5563271

Can someone translate the lede for me?

 

The most petty site on the Internet never ceases to deliver.

You are all correct. ESPN is failing. All of its writers can't match the talent on this message board. It's business model can't match the newspaper industry's smarts. It sucks to work there too, "sources tell me." Bonuses every year. Raises every year. Money and other resources to support and pursue great ideas. Ground-breaking coverage, cutting-edge technology.

But it's not perfect. And you can't get a job there. So ESPN must suck.

Keep at it boys and girls -- and trim that 25-inch roundup on girls high school soccer to 18 inches. We have a GREAT photo that needs to get at least two-column play!

 

I think I've gone out of my way to go to the ESPN/LA site about three or four times. The other times I've gone there is when I click on a story on the main site and it takes me to a story that's on ESPN/LA. The only times I've wound up on the ESPN/Chicago, Dallas or New York are when I clicked from the main ESPN page.

 

As my wife accurately points out, the ESPN local sites aren't designed to attract us, sports journalists, as viewers. It is designed to attract sports fans as viewers. She is amazed at how many of her co-workers and colleagues visit the ESPN LA.com site on a regular basis. Her friends and colleagues visit it for a variety of reasons. For some, it has replaced the morning sports section. Instead of reading the paper at breakfast, they read it on their computers at work. Some read it during games, be it basketball, baseball, college football, especially games on the East Coast that start at 4 p.m., before they go home from work.
The ESPN local sites are attracting an audience, even though it might be growing as quickly and ESPN expected.

 

As a wise old copy editor once said to me, "I know every language but Greek, and that's Greek to me."

 

Either clicking from the main ESPN page or if I'm teased in by someone I follow on Twitter who writes for one of the ESPN city sites.