ESPN Committed To Drinking Old Media's Milkshake

Written by Ben Koo | 21 July 2009

ESPN today announced that they will be launching destination sites like espnchicago.com in LA, New York, and Dallas. The article made the front page of the New York Times and has peaked the interest of many in the blogosphere.

The NYT article doesn't pull punches clearly making the connection that this is another blow to print media and their online properties in these cities.

"In less than three months, ESPN Chicago has become the city’s top sports site, attracting about 590,000 unique visitors in June, according to data from comScore, an Internet measurement company. Second place went to The Tribune’s online sports section with 455,000 unique visitors.

ESPN Chicago does not seem to have cut into The Tribune’s online sports audience as much as it has slowed its growth, according to a review of the traffic data."

My first reaction is that I doubt ESPN Chicago actually had more page views then the Tribune despite the UV number but that still doesn't do much for Tribune or other newspapers who see the ominous shadow of ESPN behind them. ESPN promoted their Chicago microsite so vigorously on air the past 4 months that the advertising alone probably accounted for a good portion of the unique visitors with many of the visitors not sticking to the site.

Regardless of that fact, ESPN has made a bold move to grow their audience by launching region specific hubs. With local radio stations providing advertising/promotion air cover as well as a talent pipeline for the new sites, I think its safe to say ESPN will have further success in this new region niche . (More after the jump, including my ESPN theory)

Yes print is in trouble as ESPN's 3 prong strategy of radio, tv, and now regional online coverage is likely going to steal ad dollars from shrinking newspapers.

Does this worry me that ESPN is launching multi team focused sites like Bloguin's Detroit4lyfe.com or PSAMP.COM? I am actually relieved to hear about this initiative as these sites are pretty much bland AP style coverage of local teams bundled together with shiny banners and a specific url. At least 80% of that content is on espn.com but hell at least this makes it more convenient for sports fans.

The reason I am relieved is that ESPN was testing a couple of programs in hopes of growing their unique visitors to close the gap on Yahoo Sports. ESPN used to be a 1 site shop and towered above all other online sports entities. Along came Yahoo Sports and with the help of some acquisitions (Rivals network, 200+ sites)  and these guys below (the awesome Y! Sports Bloggers) , ESPN no longer shows up as the largest online sports entity.

That doesn't sound signficant, but for whatever reason the major ad agencies seem to care and its tilted the playing field a bit for Yahoo in ad sales agaisnt ESPN. Over time, ESPN's given more ground to Yahoo and over the past year its been clear that ESPN has had enough and wants to make a run at Yahoo.

ESPN first partnered with Bucknuts.com (where I still write) and subsequently made similar partnerships with about a dozen other prominent college football sites all of which assigned their traffic to the mother ship. That wasn't enough so ESPN rolled out 2 new initiatives in the past 8 months:

- ESPN launched its first blog network with the True Hoop Network, a collection of about 20 NBA blogs. Pretty much labeled a pilot/experiment from everything I have heard.

- ESPN Chicago, their pilot regional micro site.

Fast forward to now and True Hoop is doing okay but is nothing special by any means in terms of design, technology, or traffic. On the flip side ESPN Chicago did get significant traction hence we're hearing about another batch of regional micro sites and not a NFL, NBA, or NHL blog network in the works....at least not yet. If ESPN really wants to get in the blog network game, they should refine their model as the value they're  providing bloggers is limited to flat compensation amounts and the ESPN affiliation (maybe saying I blog for espn can get you laid or at least some interviews??)

So while ESPN is definitely on the prowl to capitalize on local advertising dollars that typically go to newspapers, there is also an ulterior motive to leapfrog Yahoo to get a better foot hold for national display advertising as well. You can decide if it's killing two birds with one stone or feeding two birds with one hand.

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