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Your Blog Didn’t Get Buzzed by ESPN? Don’t Sweat It
Published by MoonDog on April 23, 2009
I’ve been reading some posts around the blogosphere regarding ESPN’s new morning Sports Center feature Blog Buzz, and from what I’ve gleaned it would seem the sports blogosphere isn’t too impressed.
I happened to catch Wednesday morning’s Blog Buzz and one of the articles mentioned originated from Sports Illustrated. Perhaps I misunderstood what was said but the last time I checked, Sports Illustrated isn’t a blog.
I can understand why some might be less than excited about this new feature, especially since it seems the majority of the sites being mentioned are the larger, more established sports blogs.
It would stand to reason that the larger sites – already receiving the lions share of traffic – would generate the most buzz in the blogosphere.
I don’t have a problem with ESPN focusing on the larger sites because the top level sports blogs serve as a foundation for legitimacy. For smaller sites, the opportunity to receive recognition is certainly something most of us wouldn’t turn our noses up at.
But I’m not going to hold my breath in hopes of ESPN mentioning this site. If it never receives a mention, that’s OK. If your site never gets mentioned, it should be OK with you too.
I’m of the belief that getting mentioned on air during ESPN’s telecast would obviously be a boon, but it’s just one day in a thousand. The blogosphere, much like American society, has a short memory span.
What you did today is the only thing that matters, and the one mention you might get from ESPN will more than likely drive traffic to your site for a few days. Beyond that, it’s back to slumming with the majority of us.
To carry that thought even further, the sports blogosphere already has a friend in Jimmy Traina and his daily feature at Extra Mustard. Traina has long been giving recognition to sports blogs, and doling out the love to a wide segment of the sports blogosphere, not just the large sites.
If you’ve been the beneficiary of a link from Traina, you’ll know it’s an exciting day as you watch the page views skyrocket. It’s also a day to hope your server can withstand the traffic surge.
I know a thing or two about a link from Extra Mustard – I don’t call Traina the “Server Killer” for nothing. But even when you’re fortunate enough to get a link from him, it still amounts to one day, perhaps two at the most, where you’ll see a direct effect on your traffic – at least that’s been my experience.
The primary point I’m attempting to make is the buzz we seek is right at our fingertips, and we generally don’t have to work too hard to get it.
That buzz comes from within, from those of us in the sports blogosphere. We create our own buzz every day when we link to other sports blogs.
Over the course of one year, the traffic we send each other can easily be just as plentiful if not greater than the traffic we receive from an occasional link from Extra Mustard, or on the off chance we might get mentioned on ESPN.
Moreover, I’m of the opinion the sports blogosphere doesn’t need to strive for legitimacy with regard to how the mainstream media views us. The big sites like Deadspin and Awful Announcing have already done that for us.
Regardless of what your site’s content contains, or perhaps you may not actually know the person running a particular site, you can always take consolation in the fact we all “get it.”
What we get is this thing of ours, this sports blogosphere that’s filled with a wide-ranging mix of content that aspires to entertain its readers.
Despite the trivial and sometimes petty attacks from the professional media, we’ve progressed to a point where we generally don’t need them to single us out. Again, I’m not suggesting a mention on air wouldn’t be awesome, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t.
Long story short, I’d rather focus on maintaining relationships and building new partnerships with my people – you – the sports blogger.
I believe the buzz we develop together can be even more rewarding, and we can share that buzz as a community.
Now, I wonder if I can locate some pictures of Hanna Storm naked – that would create one hell of a buzz, don’t you think?
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Lisa Horne on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 09:56
What is Buzz? I’M BEHIND THE TIMES. But I do twitter!
JRodMSF on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 10:36
Nice post MoonDog, and I agree wholeheartedly.
MSF was actually fortunate enough to get a mention in BlogBuzz the other day, and while I was pretty excited at the thought of it, I didn’t notice any great traffic spike. It was nice being able to email friends and family to let them know (mostly as means of legitimizing, in their eyes, the time I spend blogging daily), but now that I have the “great honor” of being able to say that our site got mentioned on SportsCenter once, I’d much rather enjoy the daily success of writing something that my blogging peers enjoy and link out to, and then return the courtesy.
I think it’s a nice gesture by ESPN to give blogs (even if it’s big ones at major sites) some pub, because obviously if they are mentioning MSF they are aware of the smaller guys too. In the end, it’s the opinions of other sports bloggers and my readers that are the most important to me, not the ESPNs of the world. But since every single sports blogger probably interacts with ESPN on a daily basis, and their initial foray into creating an all sports network waaaay back in the day paved the initial path that led to sports blogging, I think any blogger would feel a sense of satisfaction at having ESPN recognize their work.
klvalus on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 10:47
Last time I checked Moondog, ESPN was barely covering sports anymore. I’m with Lisa — whats Buzz??
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Zoner on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 11:55
Well at least they do acknowledge blogs. Most MSM is basically like this: “Blogs are dumb…we hate blogs…come read our new blogs!!”
MoonDog on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 12:29
Blog Buzz is a feature ESPN is running every morning towards the very end of Sports Center. They started it last week and some of the bigger sites like Deadspin, Awful Announcing, The Big Lead and Sports By Brooks were mentioned.
I know you Twitter – nice job with Pete Carroll yesterday. I’m very happy for you and your success!
MoonDog on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 12:36
Excellent points all J man. I’m not knocking ESPN at all – hell, if I got a mention, that would be great. But I think everyone got the gist of what I wrote. If we don’t get mentioned, it isn’t the end. There are a lot of sites that link to me every day. I’ve gotten links from Awful Announcing, The Big Lead and With Leather. Double Viking, Gunaxin and Busted Coverage have been very good to me.
That’s the point I wanted to get across. Other bloggers will serve the same purpose, providing validation for your work. Not to mention, Jimmy Traina has been showing bloggers love for a long time and in my mind, he’s really the guy I look to as giving us that extra recognition.
I’m really happy for you guys getting mentioned on Blog Buzz – that’s really awesome.
Thanks for chiming in.
MoonDog on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 12:39
I sent you an e-mail yesterday and didn’t hear back from you. Now I know why – you and Horne are hanging together. I wish I was there with you.
Like I told Lisa, Blog Buzz is a feature ESPN is running every morning towards the end of Sports Center. They note five blogs that are generating the most “buzz” about the hot sports topics of the day.
Respond to my e-mail. I want to know how the “girls” are doing.
MoonDog on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 12:46
LOL. True. Sort of like Stephen A. Smith bad-mouthing bloggers then what does he do? Start a blog. He’s an exception. And I agree, at least they’re mentioning some of the sites and that’s good for all of us. I love the fact some of the sites being mentioned are people I know and sites I like. At any rate, it’s all good regardless if smaller sites like mine get a nod. We just keep plugging away and good things will happen eventually.
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Matt Clapp on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 15:28
Great post MoonDog.
Ryan Stephens on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 15:29
@Moondog
Thanks for taking the time to discuss “Blog Buzz” on your blog. You bring up some excellent points about the sports blog community. As someone who has a small blog, I can identify with a lot of the points you’ve touched on; however, I’d also like to take a second and clarify a few things as well.
Blog Buzz isn’t really about where the story originated from. While it would be great to always include the original source of the story, you know as well as anyone that often times the source is a mainstream media source (i.e. Sports Illustrated) or ‘big blog.’ Blog Buzz is more about what topics have the most amount of conversation surrounding them, and then representative quotes about those topics.
As you’ve alluded to, it’s inevitable that large blogs will be featured quite a bit because they produce a much larger portion of content than the smaller blogs; however, (aside from that first day) ESPN has done a good job evenly distributing their quotes from both large and small sources, and I suspect that they will continue to make a conscious effort to so. Let’s not crucify them after one week. It’s not even enough time to see a trend develop.
The segment isn’t intended to create a schism between big blogs and small blogs, but bring all blogs together and provide them with an authentic voice that will resonate with other sports fans not yet familiar with this large, passionate community.
We, at Sports Media Challenge, hope that this inspires all bloggers to continue producing relevant and valuable content that will please their readers.
This is what your post is essentially about, and I couldn’t agree more. The most important thing for sports bloggers should be your own fans/readers/fellow bloggers. We just hope that being featured enables you to grow this community even more.
And to your comment about coming back and slumming. Most days a small blog that gets featured will probably see a couple of days of influx in traffic and go back to normal (hopefully a little higher.) That said, for some blogs being featured could be the Tipping Point. There are a lot of great blogs that don’t get the exposure they deserve. If a mention gets them 200 extra hits and 50 of them result in subscribers, and those 50 happen to be influential fans that tell others… You see where I’m going?
Thanks for an insightful write up about Blog Buzz and the Sports Blog community. I think ESPN’s heart is in the right place with this one. And bloggers such as yourself are providing feedback that will continue to help grow and transform Blog Buzz into something we can all be very passionate about.
houroc on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 17:05
It would be awesome to get a mention on ESPN but I don’t anticipate that happening with the name of my site, unless some serious changes happen in how our society views a lot of things.
Until that day, I’ll just sit back and enjoy a toke.
David Funk on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 18:36
Excellent post, MoonDog. I agree and understand where you’re coming from. To me, this is another step for bloggers in getting more mainstream exposure regardless if you’re ever mentioned or not. On that same note, the bigger sites like you pointed out are naturally going to get more anyway because of amount of content.
Anyway, thanks for informing me about this post and your thoughts about this good buddy!
JRod on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 01:00
Great points moondog. As much as I’d love a mention on ESPN it will only bring a short term surge in traffic. But then again, a small surge only motivates you more to make it happen again.
Ace on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 07:09
Great post, MoonDog. We were mentioned in a Rob Neyer article, and it played out just like you said: nice spike for a few days, then a return to normal. Mostly it was just cool – as JRod said – to be able to tell my friends and family.
Even still, blogs remain just a novelty to the MSM. And as long as they treat us that way – even if the treatment is positive – we’ll always be put in “our place.”
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Dr. Anklesnap on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 10:51
Great post brotha….i’m with you on the creating our own buzz….get those pics of Hanna Storm yet? hahahaha
MoonDog on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 16:18
You never know. You might break a story about Marijuana legalization. Stranger things have happened.
MoonDog on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 16:20
That’s true. When I get a link from Extra Mustard, I can’t wait for the next one. Might be a month or so, but when it hits – boo ya! Thanks for chiming in.
MoonDog on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 16:25
That’s awesome news. I’m always glad to hear when a smaller blog gets some love. I don’t know about being kept in our place so much though.
Deadspin, The Big Lead, Awful Announcing, etc. get serious traffic every month without the help of Extra Mustard or ESPN.
Maybe the smaller blogs fall under that category, but I have a good relationship with several professional journalists who have never treated me like a pariah. That tells me something. You obviously fall into that category too since Rob Neyer noticed your work.
Thanks for chiming in.
MoonDog on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 16:26
HA – working on it! Thanks for the love dude.