Sporting News/AOL Fanhouse

More and more places have that capability. We don't at the moment, although I'd like for us to be able to get it soon.

 

Pardon the threadjacking, but I have to toss in this story: A copy desk friend of mine once worked a place that had several entry points -- title bar, headline, deck hed, etc. And they were told not to repeat words from one entry point to another.

Which is why he referred to a "tree" as a "giver of shade."

 

We wouldn't have any such restrictions.

And YankeeFan, in our case, SEO vs. a better editorial experience would be the reason for the difference between the two.

 

I’ve been blessed to work for and with some very talented people, but the folks at FanHouse are unrivaled. It starts with Scott Ridge, who didn’t just hire a skilled and veteran staff. Scott let us breathe – find our own voices, work to our strengths, and encouraged everyone (even the interns) to share their visions for the product. He made it so easy to set aside our egos, because FanHouse wasn’t just a place to work. So many of us thought we had found our forever homes, and the passion we once had for this business (but might have lost) came roaring back.

It was only a year ago that people here and elsewhere mocked AOL – there were jokes about Prodigy and CompuServe – but look what FanHouse became in such a short time. Yahoo has an excellent staff, and I’m a big fan of Kriegel at Fox and Freeman at CBS, but I’d put our overall site above all others. (Even ESPN, mostly because I don’t have the patience to get beyond the same two columnists and all the bells and whistles to dig for their stable of writers; I only read them when they’re linked somewhere.) Our lead story changed every few hours, and there was a revolving door of breaking news and editor’s picks and video and debate and fabulous, out-of-the box enterprise features. The same day the Sporting News deal was announced -- devastation and shock to all of us -- David Whitley went to Tucson to cover the funeral of Dallas Green’s granddaughter. Who else did that? Here are just a few other unique stories that came about because we had fantastic, energized, CREATIVE editors (Scott Ridge, Barry Werner, Mike Harris, Randy Kim … along with all the editors for individual sports who apparently rarely slept) not afraid to take risks.

Stories on Mandi Schwartz, the Yale hockey player searching for a bone marrow donor:
http://nhl.fanhouse.com/2010/11/24/for-mandi-schwartz-and-family-truly-time-to-be-thankful/
http://nhl.fanhouse.com/2010/11/10/yale-womens-hockey-team-adds-another-special-player/

Ray Williams, a story picked up by all the other sites and a bunch of newspapers:
http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/10/11/the-nomadic-life-of-former-knicks-captain-ray-williams/
http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/12/17/ray-williams-goes-from-homeless-to-home-with-a-job-for-holidays/

Keith Howard:
http://www.fanhouse.com/2009/08/31/small-town-coach-big-time-hero/
Charlie Wysockis:
http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/07/29/charlie-wysockis-bipolar-battle/
Jim Gentile:
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/08/06/jim-gentile-walks-off-a-champ-as-do-baltimore-orioles/
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/07/29/orioles-should-do-right-by-jim-gentile/

Greg Couch’s investigation on Ted Forstmann and tennis; as far as I know, not even the tennis mags wrote about it until Greg started looking into it:
http://tennis.fanhouse.com/2011/01/10/ted-forstmann-is-pete-rose-of-tennis/
http://tennis.fanhouse.com/2010/09/09/indo-pak-express-gaining-steam/

That barely skims the surface. FanHouse was brilliant at putting together big packages for big events like the Super Bowl, Olympics, playoffs, college tournaments and championship games. Other sites do fine work, but when you look at how quickly and smoothly FanHouse made the transition – we never covered an Olympics until last year – it was really something. Here’s a paraphrased message from an AOL higher-up from just a few weeks ago: “FanHouse continues to exceed even the most aggressive external traffic targets we've set for the team. … Our strategy of high-quality journalism and content targeted to search demand is WORKING!!! And when the content is awesome, other sites want to link to it!!”

Indeed, our business folks had struck deals with the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers to link to our site. It seemed a natural progression that we would soon be staffing big events (Olympics, World Cup, etc.), and providing content to newspapers unable or unwilling to send their own reporters.
Somebody earlier here compared it to The National. And it was – good talent, exceptional editors, strong financial backing, egos left at the door because we were having so much fun. Some of us who were around during The National’s brief orbit often joked we hoped FanHouse didn’t die as quickly as The National. I had many conversations with colleagues at games or events that went something like this: Isn’t this amazing? How lucky are we? Hasn’t Scott been ideal to work for? It seems too good to be true.
Guess it was.
(I write about FanHouse in past tense, probably because like Moddy and everyone else, I’m just gutted about its demise. But who knows, maybe TSN has similar vision and passion and this isn’t the end to something that was truly great.)

 

Great stuff, GB...not much to say except hope some of it can be resurrected or maintained in the new setup. But with some of the people we already know are getting let go, it isn't going to be the same.

 

Don't read this is you want to not be pissed off even more:

http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/sporting-news-paid-aol-millions-to-drop-fanhouse-29433

 

Sigh.... tho loved the shot at the end...

 

Only 26? Is that normal for such an operation?

 

Makes Garry Howard look like an even bigger asshole for this, if that was possible:

http://twitter.com/SN_GarryD/status/25998523644252161

 

Fuck off Sporting News. Fuck off hard.

 

Contract employees is happening more and more and more...