Jun

17

Blogs with Balls event deemed a success

Filed Under Sports Media | 3 Comments

Those in attendance deemed the first “Blogs with Balls” conference a success and it comes as no surprise that these sports bloggers wrote about the event, providing us with plenty of recaps on what went down and what exactly they talked about.

HHR Media Group and RxSN announce today “Blogs with Balls,” a regional social sports blogger and new media gathering featuring speakers and panelists specifically focused on sports fans, writers, sites, teams, athletes and companies.  The event will take place on June 13, 2009 in New York City and will be the first in a series of regional gatherings centered on the ability of these groups to maximize new media outlets for promotion and advancement.

To view what was said about the conference on Twitter, you can view the feed for #BwB and #BlogswithBalls.

Neil Best, who runs the Watchdog blog for Newsday, was in attendance and noted how it brought together sport blogging royalty. Fang’s Bites has a great breakdown on what was discussed in the various panels throughout the day.

Panel #1 - The Future of Sports Media with Jim DeLorenzo of Octagon, Richard Ting of R/GA Media Group, Christopher Russo (not that one) of Fantasy Sports Ventures and Kathleen Hessert of Sports Media Challenge.

This was a fascinating panel. The personalities all discussed those athletes who have embraced social media like Twitter have found the network to be a great tool to get their messages across. Kathleen Hessert discussed how Shaquille O’Neal, instead of going after a fake Shaq on Twitter, just signed on, then began Tweeting and then squashed the imposter. Richard Ting discussed how the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard uses social media to reach his fans. Overall, this was the best panel of the first part of the day.

There has yet to be an announcement about when the next regional event will be held, but I think it’s safe to say that there will certainly be more after its successful showing. Should there be a Blogs with Balls event closer to Detroit, I’ll try to attend because I think sports PR practitioners need to know how to interact with sports bloggers. You may work for a very popular team that has a full press box every game and tons of media coverage nearly year-round. Even so, there will be plenty of bloggers writing about your team and it would be helpful to understand where they are coming from and how you can create a healthy, positive relationship with the key bloggers covering your team. And if you work for a team that struggles to get coverage and fill the press box, you really need to know how to reach out to bloggers.

Did any of the SPRB readers attend the event? What do you think someone working in the sports PR field could take away from Blogs with Balls?

Jun

11

NBA fines LeBron James for media snub

Filed Under Sports Media | 2 Comments

Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James refused to speak with the media after the Orlando Magic eliminated his team in a closely contested Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals. He also chose not to shake hands with Magic’s Dwight Howard, but that’s a different issue. NBA commissioner David Stern fined James $25,000 almost a week after he failed to show up at the post-game press conference or in the interview room.

My two cents: If LeBron didn’t want to shake hands with Dwight Howard and other Magic players, well, that doesn’t make him an ax murderer. Not everybody shakes hands and not doing it has nothing to do with poor sportsmanship. We’re not talking about a CYO basketball championship involving sixth-graders, after all. …

But shame on the King for not going to the interview room. He has a responsibility to take questions, and not just because he’s the recently-crowned MVP. Win or lose, it’s part of his job. And that means right after the game, by the way, not the next day up in Cleveland.

What a nightmare that had to be for the PR staff. It’s understandable that players wouldn’t want to talk after a devastating loss like that. We all get it. But talking to the media is part of an athlete’s duties and when the star player is unavailable for a series deciding game, it causes some problems for the reporters trying to cover it. That’s why leagues have rules about when players have to be available after a game — members of the media need to get quotes for their articles and are usually rushing trying to hit deadline as it is. A delay in availability or the lack of media availability from one of the NBA’s premiere players (and regular season MVP) really makes it difficult for reporters just trying to do their job.

Mar

1

Newspaper struggles continue to mount

Filed Under Sports Media | 2 Comments

Some quick links to articles and blog posts about the latest in newspaper struggles.

  • This week, the Rocky Mountain News announced it was shutting down just 55 days before its 155th anniversary.
  • The Big Lead interviewed Bob Kravitz, a columnist at the Indianapolis Star, and talked about a range of topics including the troubles of the newspaper industry.
  • Joe Favorito blogs about how quickly the traditional news media outlets are going.
  • Newsday plans on ending its free online content and will require payment to view its articles found on its website. Hearst also plans to start charging for its publications’ digital content.
  • The American Society of Newspaper Editors canceled its annual conference this year due to the growing economic crisis.

Feb

27

ESPN to launch Chicago sports site

Filed Under Sports Business News, Sports Media | 4 Comments

Earlier this week, ESPN announced that it will launch a new website dedicated to covering Chicago sports. The sport media empire decided that it wanted to start targeting sports fans in specific markets and what better city to start with than Chicago. ESPNChicago.com will be the first of these local sports sites, but ESPN is hoping that it won’t be the last.

“We already have a user base with millions of people coming to [ESPN.com] looking for Chicago sports,” Horine said. “At its core, the mission is simple: to super-serve Chicago sports fans.”

In addition to sports news, the site will have social-networking aspects, a travel partnership and even a way to organize your local softball team.

And like the cable channel, ESPN Chicago will feature its own “SportsCenter”-style newscast with a three- to five-minute highlight reel of the day’s top stories. It will have original content and include breaking news, provided by Chicago’s WLS-Ch. 7. The ABC affiliate and ESPN are both owned by The Walt Disney Co.

ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski, a former Chicago Tribune sportswriter, will write for the site. Other ESPN contributors will write for the Chicago site, as will ESPN 1000 radio personalities Tom Waddle and Bruce Levine.

To be honest, I guess I’m surprised that this is the first time a major media outlet has created a website solely dedicated to a single region’s sports coverage. The Huffington Post created a Chicago local site last summer with blog posts and aggregated news feeds of stories central to the area. MillerCoors will be the charter advertiser for the ESPN Chicago website to get it up and running. It will certainly be interesting to see how users are attracted to the website and if it becomes a popular go-to website for Chicago sports fans.

← Previous Page