More on ESPNDallas.com
September 29th, 2009 . 12:46 pm . By: Buzz CarrickI have to say the jersey sponsor looked nice, but the launch of ESPNDallas.com didn’t include a lot of soccer. I know some people in the media business, heck I’m in the media business, so I asked around. Here’s what I’m hearing behind the scenes. 1. ESPNDallas.com will be going with mostly ex-Dallas Morning News writers like Calvin Watkins, Richard Durrett, Tim MacMahon. What I hear is an ex-Morning News editor is running the show and DMN people are the ones he’s interested in hiring 2. I also hear, even before their launch, they are already scaling back their vision of this thing. Word has it they might have overreached here locally and are now looking to scale back a little. 3. As for more FCD coverage, I wouldn’t expect it. On the other regional ESPN sites, Chicago and Boston, all of their coverage for the Fire and Revs comes from the news wire, there isn’t a specific writer for MLS. Is just wire reports “more coverage of the team than any other sports news Web site in the Metroplex?” It would have been nice to see FC Dallas on the blog top bar, but I guess there’s no budget for a soccer blogger. 4. At this point it sounds like ESPNdallas.com will skew heavily toward Cowboys and high schools. That leaves MLS even further down the pecking order. Cowboys and high school are also the two segments that the Dallas Morning News and Star Telegram consider the primary focus. So it might be interesting to watch that battle and see who survives. This thing could be one of the death blows to newspaper sports pages. Although I must say the ESPN SportsCenter Dallas thing is quite cool. Side note: I also know Fox Sports is ramping up their regional websites. That includes a forthcoming Fox Sports Southwest website. 10 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Yeah I was looking at it yesterday and as far as soccer is concerned, it looks more like a portal to soccer coverage, not so much specific coverage of soccer from a local viewpoint. But hey it’s brand new, so maybe that’ll change.
Where would Steve Davis fall into that vision? Perhaps he could use the exposure of the ESPN brand for his blog…or perhaps not. Is he purely freelancing at this point, Buzz?
anyone who wants FCD on the espndallas website, follow this link and tell them so. perhaps they’ll listen.
http://espn.go.com/sportsnatio.../id/28510/espn-dallas-feedback
I was disappointed to see they don’t even list tomorrow’s doubleheader at the Cotton Bowl on their “Dallas Calendar”. I wrote them about it; no response, no change. Seems like having the Mexican national team play right there in Fair Park would be worth a mention.
Buzz — why don’t you get your stuff “syndicated” there? You probably wouldn’t get much for it but it’s not like 3rd Degree is a for-profit site anyway.
Right now their FC Dallas “coverage” is basically just a link to a soccernet.com search for FC Dallas. Hopefully that will improve.
Buzz,
What did FCD get out of this “partnership,” then? Was actual money exchanged?
I was dissapointed but fully expected High School Football to boot us out of the way again. I also emailed them regarding the ommission of FCD’s Cotton Bowl Clash on the calendar… no response. The coverage of soccer in Dallas sucks beyond belief!!!! Thank God for Third Degree!
Buzz,
On the same vein… I see that you mentioned some former DaMN writers will be part of this endeavor… did you know that Grant and Frailey were hired back? Watching MNF last night not seeing an FCD player when ESPN was prompting ESPNDALLAS.COM left something to be desired.
Steve, I think FCD is going to get some coverage out of this, although I’m not sure what. I’ll ask about it when I can.
Kirk, I’m not sure I’m “professional” enough for them.