Yahoo! Sports Smells Like Teen Spirit
Coming up with gift ideas is hard to do. Does the top sports site on the web really need more killer fantasy sports, top-notch scoreboards, world-class columnists, maniacally used message boards and original video? Hmmm … I know, blogs & community! Let’s wrap that baby up and put a pretty little bow on it!
That’s what we’re here to do, or at least that’s what discernable from my new role with Yahoo! Sports as the Senior Editor of Blogs & Community. The good thing is, I have some experience with that, coming from AOL Sports where you may know me (probably not) from such blogs as FanHouse, podcasts as Sports Bloggers Live and communities as Pigskin Bloggers.
But enough from me and about me, what does this mean for Yahoo! Sports and its users? Actually, let’s talk more about me, and take it to my turf, the blogosphere. First up, from the comments of my Q & A with The Big Lead:
“I’d compare Mottram with Kurt Cobain out of Sub Pop Records in the late ’80s. When Nirvana left Sub Pop, they hit big, and the underground grunge scene blew up, annihilating mainstream music. Eventually most of the grunge acts were signed, money was made, and Blind Melon came out. The world went downhill from there.”
While I’ve never been much of a Nirvana fan (I was more of a Pearl Jam guy), and this means we only have about five years of earth-rattling success ahead of us, I’ll take it. Let’s see what else bloggers be sayin’ upon the jump to Yahoo!. With Leather:
“Jamie’s one of those [people] who’s really smart and good-looking and has his [stuff] together but is still a down-to-earth, stand-up guy.”
Let the adjectives fly! FanHouse:
“For Yahoo!, it’s a great move. Mottram is smart, hard-working and well-connected within the sports blogosphere.”
Oh, go on! Sports by Brooks:
“The hire is a coup for Yahoo[!] and a major loss for AOL. Mottram made AOL Fan[H]ouse a daily must-visit, and he will do the same as Yahoo[!]’s sports blogging point man.”
And the cherry on top, courtesy of John Ness:
“Jamie Mottram is, generally speaking, good for America wherever he goes.”
That last one may have been a little overboard. More telling than all of this blogger love though, is the lack of loathing for Yahoo! Sports upon this announcement. Generally speaking, blogs are often critical of major corporations and their efforts to, for lack of a better term, keep it real.
With this move, Yahoo! Sports is doing just that; getting in with the cool kids by improving editorial and attracting a new (young, male, tech-savvy, affluent and awesome) audience. Yet there’s nary a negative word to be found among the 15-plus blogs covering this hire. That’s rare, and it speaks to how effectively Yahoo! has been in building their burgeoning sports empire.
We’ll continue building by creating the best sports blogging and social media experience there is. Yahoo! Sports is fertile soil to cultivate such a thing, and, as The Big Lead commenter pointed out, the end result will annihilate other mainstream sports media sites. That’s the plan anyway. Let’s just hope it ends better than Grunge did, or else that Cobain comparison will seem a lot more macabre than it does today.
– Jamie Mottram
Yahoo! Sports Senior Editor of Blogs & Community
The illustration above is a Sheedtastic rendition of me, courtesy of the lovely Natalie Sitto at Need 4 Sheed.
Original post by Yahoo! Sports Blog
