Michael Silver leaves Sports Illustrated for Yahoo Sports

I apparently am in the minority, but Yahoo! Sports is my home page. I love reading it because it is much easier to load than ESPN and it doesn't have as much crap on the page that ESPN does.

I am curious, though, how would Yahoo! promote their writers? ESPN obviously has the TV medium to cross-promote, so how can Yahoo! compete with that?

 

sorry, folks, but this is a geezer who feels yahoo and other web sites are where good writers go if they don't wish to be read much anymore.

yahoo was ahead on the vick and balco business? how many know this or give a darn? it was a good move for newspaper guys like jason cole, perhaps, but a mag guy like michael silver? nice knowing your work, mike. i'll never see it again.

 

Jeez, everyone is leaving Sports Illustrated. Either Yahoo is offering more money or SI is just going downhill.

 

Mea Culpa:

Yahoo! does indeed have excellent football analysis. Jason Cole is awesome. They broke the Reggie Bush story, and their news is always quite good.

Dammit, I forgot about the things they have done.

But Silver does not add to that. He's the king of the touchy-feely, "Wow, I'm so cool because I'm HERE with HIM!" feature.

Yahho! can compete with si.com because it doesn't hire every blogger sitting on his couch and call them an analyst. Yahoo! can compete with espn.com because it's all free. The fantasy stuff brings readers in, and then they find the excellent work a Passan or Cole does.

 

Well, seeing as how nobody even would know the Bush story existed if it wasn't for these guys, I'm going to guess a lot of people are aware of it.
Yahoo is the home page for millions of people. You get a 10th of their audience to read a story, it's more than you'd get in a month at a newspaper.

 

And remember, it isn't Yahoo Sports it is Yahoo! Sports. I just checked their site and for all the talent they have collected I didn't see a single Yahoo! Sports byline on their front page. Almost all AP. What gives?

 

I just looked and I count 7 pieces by Yahoo writers. It's all AP under the "Headlines" section, but isn't that how all national sites are these days?

 

no

 

Well, I just looked at ESPN.com, Sportsline and Fox and nearly every piece in the "headline" section is from the AP or some rewritten AP variation.

 

Not true. There were like three outlets who knew about it and were chasing along with Yahoo. All came out within hours of Yahoo. Miami (where Cole was) and San Diego had tougher editorial hurdles to climb to break it then from what I heard (decisions on stuff from anonymous sources, etc.) .
Nonetheless it was a great job by Yahoo to get it out if they could and props to their staff.

 

Despite those who have assured themselves that I'm an idiot, I think a print product or some other format (TV? Radio?) would be highly beneficial to Yahoo. They need to increase their exposure, and the Sporting News has left the door wide open for someone to fill a certain niche.

Perhaps it's a far-fetched concept. When I think of Yahoo, though, I don't think of news. I don't see how they can change the perception simply by adding studs and churning out superb copy. We're not talking about ESPN, which, by the way, has a print product. You can't just turn a dial and find Yahoo. You have to make a specific decision that you want to go to Yahoo for your news.

 

Yahoo gets the props for continuing to dig, too. Not only did they break the story, but they "re-broke" it like four or five times. The LA Times and San Diego and ESPN just totally gave up on it. What a joke.

What the hell ever happened to that whole thing, anyway? I read where Bush paid off some guys, but is that it? WTF is the NCAA doing?