12/21/24
February 13, 2007
Whoa.: ESPN buys TrueHoop.
posted by Ufez Jones to basketball at 06:57 PM - 15 comments
I must be getting old: I cant even muster any sort of indie rock street cred death notice. Here's hoping ESPN stays true to its word, however unlikely.
posted by yerfatma at 08:10 PM on February 13, 2007
Wonder what they paid. "... while the people at ESPN have shown precious little interest in monkeying with the content, they have demonstrated a willingness to dream up all kinds of ways they might be able to put their resources to good use to make it better." Does anyone else think ESPN will really leave it alone? There's not much precedent at the network for staying out of things.
posted by rcade at 08:28 PM on February 13, 2007
I just wish Turner would stop screwing up all of their websites.
posted by Knuckles at 09:11 PM on February 13, 2007
I cant even muster any sort of indie rock street cred death notice. Well, nearing 28 I find myself caring less and less about such matters, but I did go back and check, and I've been subscribing to TH's rss feed since Sept of 05. I know for a fact that I was checking in on it at least twice a week for several months before then. I find this notable less for the fact that ESPN bought a blog, but more the fact that Henry has gotten some recognition for running (IMO) the single best news-aggregating blog for a specific sport for a very long time. I'd like to be corrected on that, but I doubt it could be done. ESPN can hussy up print-to-blog former beat writers all they want (Hi Matt Mosely!), but the fact that they're apparently interested in buying former relatively-indie blogs is interesting to me. Frankly, I hope it means that they've bought into content based material and this will mean the end of the Insider. Pipedream, I know. Does anyone else think ESPN will really leave it alone? There's not much precedent at the network for staying out of things. For the time being, I think the only discernable changes will be Henry being a little more careful with his editing and maybe some harder moderation on the comments. So long as it doesn't screw up the .rss feed, I'll be fine with it. Isn't this kind of a first for the Mother Mouse, though? I can't think of any precedent that would show that ESPN would buy out an indie website and aim to change it - not that I'm saying it's not their intent.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:14 PM on February 13, 2007
Frankly, I hope it means that they've bought into content based material and this will mean the end of the Insider. I assume this will now be insider, just like Ken Pomeroy and Kyle Whelliston's work was taken to Insider when they joined ESPN. Generally, I think the major story here is that a major content provider is now repeatedly willing (Simmons, Pomeroy, Whelliston, TrueHoop, etc.) to use blogs as their farm teams, instead of the traditional media routes. The beauty of this is that if TrueHoop starts to suck, someone else will replace him- that didn't used to be the case. Interesting that this hasn't happened in other media areas yet- the WSJ and NYT aren't hiring bloggers onto their editorial pages yet, for example. Maybe ESPN (despite how much we all hate it) really is less full of itself than these other outlets. (By the way, getting TrueHoop on board isn't particularly revolutionary. When they buy Deadspin, or FreeDarko... that will be a new day in Bristol.)
posted by tieguy at 10:43 PM on February 13, 2007
He is maintaining that his content will be free and not on Insider, fwiw.
posted by insomnyuk at 12:09 AM on February 14, 2007
When are we gonna sell SpoFi? Maybe Rupert Murdoch will hook us up with MySpace. I keed, I keed.
posted by worldcup2002 at 12:32 AM on February 14, 2007
When are we gonna sell SpoFi? wait, aren't we already owned by yahoo?
posted by goddam at 01:05 AM on February 14, 2007
My guess is that the WWL will find someway to screw this up. I don't blame TrueHoop for selling - I mean, doing that for free is a little taxing - but really, there is no way in hell changes aren't coming down the pipe that will involve some degree of revenue - ads, Insider - whathaveyou.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 07:59 AM on February 14, 2007
Don't forget the former SportsJones (god bless its little progressive heart), which was killed when ESPN came in and grabbed Royce Webb, Jeff Merron and Eric Neel. Essentially, ESPN's blog strategy 1.0 was to try and kill blogs off by poaching the best writers. As tieguy points out, TrueHoop might constitute the beginning of blog strategy 2.0.
posted by smithers at 09:22 AM on February 14, 2007
I don't think their strategy was to kill blogs; it was to hire writers who'd proven to be good in a blog format. That this happened to kill their blogs was incidental. (And frankly, should be incidental; the quality of the writing should be much more important than the format or the domain name.)
posted by tieguy at 09:46 AM on February 14, 2007
It's such a great blog that I understand why ESPN is interested, but they will definitely ruin it. First, they will ruin it because it will be a part of their website, which is a mess with popups, video, and just a busy mess. Then they will probably encourage him to dumb it down, like everything they do. Also, the comment, which are currently interesting, will be filled with imbeciles, so that they won't be worth reading.
posted by bperk at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2007
What? Oh, no ... we won't change a thing!
posted by wfrazerjr at 11:29 AM on February 14, 2007
...this hasn't happened in other media areas yet- the WSJ and NYT aren't hiring bloggers onto their editorial pages yet,... It may be coming sooner than you think. Take a look at this. http://belowthebeltway.com/2007/02/07/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-printed-newspapers/
posted by Howard_T at 01:22 PM on February 14, 2007
Sure, ESPN says they won't meddle now, but that remains to be seen. I hope TrueHoop does stay the same and he doesn't cave to "mainstream". But, congrats to him and a steady paycheck. Those are always nice.