Jason Cole joining Yahoo Sports

The Miami Herald's Dolphins beat guy is leaving to become an NFL writer with Yahoo. It's been rumored for a while, and he made it official today.

 

No need to apply for the Herald job. Rumor is that it's going to Pickle_Juice.

 

So Yahoo! will have two NFL guys (Robinson and Cole) now?

 

I can't belive it took three minutes, 59 seconds for the first Pickle_Juice reference. This place is slipping.

 

That's what it looks like. It makes sense. All the big outfits have at least two national guys on the NFL. Clark Judge and Pete Prisco at Sportsline, Michael Silver and Don Banks for CNNSI, and about 50 guys for ESPN.

Cole is a great hire for Yahoo. He is a great beat writer who should be a natural as a national guy. He and Robinson should compliment each other really well, and then they have Cris Carter as the pro analyst. In the wake of all the Reggie Bush stuff they broke, I think Yahoo is ready to jump to the next level with sports websites. I read Wetzel, Robinson and Passan pretty regularly.

They've got a nice little lineup going. And from what I understand, they are going to continue to expand, too.

The one thing that's missing - they need a new design for the site. It's had that same look for like six or seven years. Kind of stale.

 

The ease of navigation and simplicity are what keep me coming back there.

 

This just posted on Profootballtalk.com, which is sort of the "Page Six" of the NFL. I didn't realize these guys were going at it for the Bush story. I'm betting that had something to do with Yahoo going after Cole.

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COLE HEADING TO YAHOO

A reader has alerted us to the fact that veteran Dolphins beat writer Jason Cole is leaving the Miami Herald and accepting a position with Yahoo! Sports.

Cole has confirmed the move in an e-mail sent to us this afternoon.  His last day with the Herald is June 30.

Coincidentally, both Cole and Charles Robinson of Yahoo! broke the story regarding the alleged receipt by the family of USC tailback Reggie Bush of free lodging in a house owned by a man who wanted to represent Bush in his marketing deals.  Robinson was the first one to post the story, with Cole only a few hours behind.  We've previously heard through our industry connections that, at times, Robinson and Cole were literally side-by-side in their pursuit of details regarding the story.

 

Yeah. From what I heard, the Reggie thing was crazy. I guess Robinson, Cole and Liz Mullen from the Sports Biz Journal were all out in California at the same time trying to put the story to bed, and kept running into each other. For me, that was the moment that I think Yahoo crossed into a legitimate news breaking entity. They owned that story for a couple of weeks. It seemed like every day they were breaking something.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the Bush thing keeps unfolding. I imagine Robinson and Cole would work it together now that they're on the same staff.

 

Don't be so sure that Cole isn't a replacement. ESPN and Fox Sports have both been courting Robinson. Not a big surprise after the Bush stuff. This might be a sign that he's decided to move on.

 

No big deal, but it's SI.com. Hasn't been CNNSI for several years now. And they have more than Silver and Banks. Perhaps you've heard of Peter King?

 

Gimme that foul ball, you little bastard.