The Front Row

They currently have team sites for UGA, Florida, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, USC and scUM. This is something that I thought should have been available from them already. It will be interesting to see how in depth and up to date they are.

It's recruiting sites. Fans of "big" teams can get all of their recruiting info from the RecruitingNation sites. The Buckeyes haven't had one, but obviously will be getting one in the near future.

Of course, if your like me, you can just stick to Bucknuts ;)

It not that bad to have another Buckeye site as its good for the consumer to have the most competition (means nobody will have time to take sleep as everyone will have to work tirelessly to be #1 and gain new members).

I question how or if ESPN will be able to give you that local feel that makes sites like Bucknuts pretty good.

Also good to have more free websites like 11w and now ESPN in case you ever find yourself getting banned by some over zealous mod, then you can always have more options to keep it moving to.

It would be interesting to see where these two guys are located and work out of. If they are in Bristol, CT and reporting from a far, then it probably won't be much better. Hopefully these guys are local, with more ties and connections to Ohio State and will be able to bring more accurate and timely information. May also be a good shot for these guys to get some national publicity, so that could make them really bring it to further their careers.

Maybe

I thought Ohio State should have been one of the original five or so given how huge their market is. This is way overdue. I might actually go check out ESPN every now and then. But, eh, probably not...

The only thing they post about OSU is negative things, so I have no reason to go there, especially when 24/7 and Rivals are both better at recruiting and getting the non bias news out.

You guys will enjoy ESPN's failure here. I wrote about this initiative at length at the link below.

http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/february/espns-biggest-business-shortcoming-is-not-being-the-worldwide-leader-in-college-recruiting.html

Some highlights from my article:

"Rewind back to this summer when ESPN announced they were going to launch up to a dozen college recruiting sites to better compete in this market. I was extremely skeptical at the time. The sentiment was echoed by 24/7's CEO and former Rivals CEO, Shannon Terry:

"I don’t know what they can offer that’s different from what’s already being done. … It can be more difficult for big companies to build highly specialized products like this and be as laser-focused.”

Half a year later, the initiative seems to be stuck at 7 sites:

Florida, Michigan, Georgia, LSU, Alabama, USC, Texas, and Oklahoma.

If you're a fan of any of these schools and have no idea what I'm talking about, you're not alone. The majority of these sites are essentially digital ghost towns with no article comments and message boards that haven't been posted on in weeks, and in some cases months as seen below..."

"At the end of the day, it really boils down to the fact that something plagues ESPN culturally that prevents them to either build or buy new innovative areas of their business in the web space. Having some familiarity with the business brain trust in Bristol and New York, I'd chop it up to lack of risk taking, people concerned about the safety of their high end jobs, being out of touch with new trends, too much red tape, lack of visionary leadership, and a stodgy way of viewing disruption within the media space."

A prominent writer read my article and reached out to me saying the ESPN suit who dreamed up this initiative called him and asked "Why do we always fail in this space."

There is this way of thinking at ESPN that just putting their logo on something makes it competitive/the best thing in the world. Sports by Brooks and me went back and forth about if ESPN's college recruiting sites would succeed. Almost a year into this foray, they're bleeding money. Nobody cares. None of those sites (especially the ones they launched from scratch) are influential. People hate them to be honest.

Scout, Rivals, 24/7 and even blog networks eat, drink, and breathe this sector everyday. ESPN just props up a shitty website with an unknown writer and thinks slapping the ESPN logo on it, is going to get people to give a shit. A great combination of being naive and arrogant.

The digital people BD at ESPN are a total joke. It's great they have MBA's and finance experience and look great in suits, but they don't know tech, fragmented localized web audiences, and compelling content whatsoever.