Sporting News Today thread (what do you think?)

Printing is a pain in the ass with this format.

 

Page 6, right side.

 

I like it so far. Haven't tried to print it. Don't know if they'll make any money or be around in three years. But I like what I've seen and will come back tomorrow.

 

Think it was mentioned before, but they could -- and should -- do a lot more with cross-linking. That's what this is made for.

Not just to other pages in their "section." Not just to mlb.com.

Any player used in a story is fair game for a link. Any MLB, NFL, NBA player can be cross-linked to his career stats in any one of several places.

Do these outlets have a problem with linking to another site like, say, The Baseball Cube? And if they do, should they?

 

Good point, Shotty. Unless you're planning to replicate all of the other deep sports content on the Web (Baseball Cube is a good example), you absolutely need to provide links to other source content.

 

Excellent idea, Shotty. There is just enough cross-linking in this section to make you realize that they don't do enough. It makes the copy more interactive.

Still not too happy with the football-centric coverage (seriously, what's going to happen in November? Are they going to have MORE football coverage?) Ugh. Spread it out a little.

Not nearly enough baseball coverage, except small AP recaps that are available anywhere. ... Was glad to see an original Sabathia/Brewers gamer. Pretty basic, but it's a start. ... I do like reading the notes packages, although I'd be more impressed if there weren't so many rehashes of items that were reported in other papers. (That said, we here are probably not a typical audience -- I browse through the LAT, WaPo and AJC sites most days, so the Dodgers, Nats and Braves notes were "old" to me. But probably not most people.)

Noticed a couple more house ads -- including the one for NASCAR Scene -- but only the one real ad for SPEED. Can't imagine the business model will be a stable one unless that changes soon.

That said, I liked today's section better than yesterday's. I'll open it up again tomorrow. ... Hope they can keep it up.

 

I really do believe that there's a lot of "We're the Sporting News, and we're not going to link to ESPN.com ... because it's ESPN.com."

And news outlets have to get away from that now. If ESPN chooses to keep a certain amount of information and make it available on the Web, it's fair game for linkage.

If you have an AP story on the Web site, and a Washington Post story sheds additional light into a certain aspect of said story ... there is no reason why you should not link it.

Do that -- regularly, not just now and then -- and you can provide a ridiculous amount of information in the space of one screen.

 

Agreed wholeheartedly. As long as the info is accurate, readers don't care where it comes from.

 

Exactly. And if Site A is providing me with a screen full of high-quality content, regardless of if most of the links are directing me to Sites B-F, I'm going to continue to go to Site A to get it all at once rather than browse through Sites B-F looking for what I want.

I think -- though I may be wrong -- that most people would rather do that, too.

 

That's why most of the successful sports blogs, like Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Bog, aren't afraid to link to competitor's websites and stories if they're worth doing so. Readers want the best content and will go to whatever site provides it to them.

 

You'll see a lot of the best newspaper blogs do this.

"Hey, so and so has this. We're working on tracking down our own confirmation, but until then have at it."

 

I really like the format once you get used to it. The problem I have is with the content, it's the same old boring Sporting News stuff. Give me something that sticks out and makes me want to read it. Not like they're going to run out of space. :