ESPN: Powerhouse in Sport Broadcasting

In the world of sports, there are many different frames about the same exact story, whether it is a controversy, highlight, or announcement. As more sources come up on the sports broadcasting radar, you begin to ask yourself who can you trust and who you should learn to skip over. ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) has continued to build up its reputation so that viewers that are seeking in depth, correct information, they will rely on ESPN to provide it to them. By using their Twitter and Facebook account, and their own homepage, they are able to spread their sports stories to many areas of the world. This aggressive style of reporting has led them to be the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

Retrieved from bleacherreport.com

Two weeks ago, the five starters from the 2012 Kentucky NCAA Championship team announced that they would be entering this year's NBA draft this coming June. The photo on the right has become a very popular image that was captured by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images. It has been used on many homepages, front pages of newspapers and magazines, and many other broadcasting to draw more attention to the already popular Wildcats. When these five particular players announced their decision to enter in the draft, ESPN took advantage of the moment and gave this particular segment a half hour of air time. In other sport instances, other than a game of some type, this is unheard of! When the Penn State controversy of Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulting young boys, ESPN ran segment after segment for weeks talking about the issue in depth and getting many different angles to that crisis. With so many analysts on their team, they certainly have the resources that many other broadcasters do not, therefore enabling them to spend more time covering stories such as these, as well as to draw more viewers in since they know that ESPN will be covering these issues more than your nightly news will.  

The video to the left is courtesy of  YouTube.com where there were many videos showing the results of NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell discipline for the Saints Bounty Program. The video was uploaded by ESPN to spread this very dramatic story to all social networking sites that they possibly could. This was a huge issue and was talked about amongst sport fans in the weeks to follow this outbreak of information. One of the reasons that ESPN has become such a powerhouse in sports broadcasting is because of their background knowledge, their manpower to investigate, and their diligence to check and re-check their sources, to get all the information correct, and then to report it accurately so that their viewers will have the knowledge that they may not have been able to get anywhere else.

 

The "You" in YouTube

When many people think of the website www.YouTube.com, they think of music videos, homemade videos, interviews and much more that is shared over the internet. YouTube.com has recently changed their homepage to allow users to personalize it based on their interests and what clips they watch most often. Being able to 'subscribe' to certain channels allows viewers to browse through highlights that would only be of interest to them based on their interests and recent searches. This personalization technique that YouTube.com has utilized, has enabled more users and has brought more convenience and interest to their website.

I recently have subscribed to the "Official Channel of MLB.com on YouTube's website to receive updates and highlights faster than I would from ESPN.com or Foxsportsnorth.com. Not being able to watch at least part of a big game is always disappointing, especially if you search multiple websites for some highlights and cannot find them, anywhere! YouTube has made it easier to find highlights of any game you missed as well as feature stories, personal interviews, shout-outs, etc. The video on the left is courtesy of YouTube drawing fans attention that at the time, there was eight days until home opener. This was Major League Baseball's way of gearing fans up for the upcoming season and to raise that anticipation so more fans would be inclined to search more YouTube videos promoting MLB and to reach that goal of having those same fans attend more games. Various sports teams have used social media sites such as YouTube to promote their organization or certain individuals within their organization which has helped bring recognition to them in times that their win-loss record is not cutting it. The content is copyrighted to their organization so they have a fairly simple task of expanding past their fans attending the game and spread their game highlights to those individuals who could not get to the game, or who would just like to see what happened while they were away from their television.

 As part of YouTube's social network, I can personalize their homepage to be my homepage with all the latest highlights from various different sports that are going on right now, to different interviews with political people or celebrities, or whomever I am interested in hearing from. It took me awhile to actually sit and play with their homepage since usually I will just type in a keyword that I want and find the video that I am looking for and then go about my usual business. Since I was introduced to this feature, I have, sadly, wasted a lot of time on their site surfing their videos that spike my interest. The video to the right, 'LeBron Makes His Mark All Over Thursday's Top 10' is an example of the different things that I look for when wanting highlights or clips from the night before when I couldn't watch the games myself. I like this particular video since it allows me to stay connected with the National Basketball Association and the players that continuously outperform others.

Having found this feature of YouTube's, I can see myself using it more and expanding into other areas that are both sport related and non-sport related. I have found myself 'following' various sport fanatics on Twitter.com or looking for videos on Facbook.com that are of interest to me. Knowing that I can search in one central location that has already done the work for me will drive me to visit their site more often. Well done YouTube.