experience matters

It’s not every day that Chris Berman is talking about Chicago on ESPN.com.  They only roll his old, green sport-coated Nutri-System frame out there for the really big gigs.  It’s also not every day that you want to see Chris Berman talking.  He has a history of some profanity laced tirades., probably in the middle of the Nutri-System stretch.   But all that changes with the launch this week of ESPNChicago.com.

I was excited that Bristol chose Chicago as the launch city instead of NY or Boston.  But having worked a bit with ESPN, I know that any redesign work they do to the site is driven by one thing and one thing only – ad revenue.  The architecture of the site, the overall navigation and the placement of ad units are all built in a way to maximize those ad dollars, not, as they say, the “fan” experience.  Stub Hub seems to agree.

That being said, Scott the Chicago fan is excited.  I have all ESPN, all Chicago – all the time.  Today the Sox center fielder dislocated his shoulder and Bruce Levine was there to tell me all about it.  I have great stats, great pictures and commentary from the personalities I am used too.

Scott the digital marketer is extremely disappointed.  While there is a “blogs & community” section, the site is lacks any real social influence.  No group of fans is more passionate than local sports fans.  It’s the reason why local radio shows continue to do well.  It’s the reason a network like Yardbarker has the following it does.  Yet ESPN continues push and pull, rather than share.

So why would ESPN neglect this area for something as important as localization?  It seems to be another example of a broadcast driven company continuing to think like a broadcast driven company.

They spent time and real estate on the site integrating Chris Berman and other personalities as well as the overall SportsCenter theme, a digital strategy they have worked on for years.  Not a bad strategy, but not a complete one either.

What ESPN is missing is the opportunity to combine the strength of their brand(s) with kick-ass digital experiences.  This should be easy to do given the passion of sports fans. A toolbox of widgets, feeds and customizable dashboards at the hands of these fans would be damn powerful.   Sure, they had mobile early on, but that is table stakes (and they didn’t do it that well if you remember correctly).

Why not harness the power of the local sports fan to help drive some of their content or to enable a conversation? Good recap of how NPR took a shot at it and Mickey Mouse doesn’t own them.  This is what sports radio does and fans would much rather be interactive on the web than in their car, even if it does mean looking at Chris “Burger” Berman and his good carbs instead of the bad ones.