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ESPN Takes Aim at Local Sports

By Beacon Staff

No matter what happens in the future of journalism, I will never be prepared to give up on local sports coverage. For some people, it’s the only reason they pay attention to the news, or at least one of the most important.

In Montana, this is mostly confined to the high school and collegiate levels. In big cities, in addition to keeping tabs on the amateurs, people depend on their local reporters – print, radio and television – to provide in-depth coverage on their favorite pro teams. So it’s natural for us in the sports news industry – especially those in metropolitan areas – to feel a tinge of trepidation at ESPN’s recent announcement that it is honing in on local markets.

Already the dominant force of the sports information world, ESPN announced it is adding three local Web sites in addition to its ESPN Chicago, an experimental site that has now surpassed the Chicago Tribune’s online sports section as the most viewed in the city. ESPN will now have sites dedicated solely to sports that take place in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and the surrounding areas of those cities.

This story is significant enough for the New York Times to have put it on the front page of its Web site yesterday and for bloggers like Dan Shanoff to weigh in. This doesn’t affect my job, nor is it likely to affect Montana as a whole. But I still don’t like it.

I’ll be the first to admit that I cruise sites like ESPN and Sports Illustrated for scores, updates and statistics. This is a matter of convenience. But when I want to know more about a good or important game – maybe the playoffs or a double-overtime thriller – I go to the writers on the ground, the ones who follow local teams as their beat, as their livelihood. When the Los Angeles Lakers were playing in the NBA championship, I checked in with the LA Times several times a week.

Each city has its own reporters and columnists who bring a far more informed perspective than I suspect ESPN ever will with its rotation of Associated Press stories, blogs and other collected tidbits. Or worse, ESPN will simply be the nail in the coffin for sports departments already coping with a struggling newspaper industry. I don’t want to see an ESPNChicago.com byline; I want to see a person’s name.

The New York Times says ESPN’s latest moves are “threatening one of the last strongholds of local newspapers and television stations.” That’s a shame. Worse, the story states that executives are saying the announcement is “only the ‘first inning’ of their effort to provide hyperlocal sports coverage in cities across the country.”

So, as with everything at ESPN in recent years, this beast will grow, and it will grow rapidly. I don’t know exactly what this means for the future of sports writing, which I feel, as an industry, has already been in sharp decline in this blog- and statistic-fueled modern world.

With no professional teams and no large urban markets, Montana shouldn’t have much to fear with ESPN’s efforts to put a stranglehold on the nation’s sports information diversity. But if you care about local sports, as well as the quality and future of its coverage, this news can’t be ignored no matter where you live. Both the fans and the athletes deserve better.