Gannett and USA Today are "getting serious about sports, with a major refocus and investment that includes the hiring of top names in editorial, marketing and sales to fill an expanding USA Today Sports Media Group," according to Terry Lefton in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The new hires, which "include such sports business veterans as Dave Morgan, Peter Lazarus, Merrill Squires and John Von Stade, are backing print and online content plays designed to make the digital version of the nation’s biggest circulation newspaper more competitive against top sports sites in an effort to drive traffic." The overall effort is being led by former SI and Broadband Sports marketer Tom Beusse, "brought on in January as president of USA Today Sports Media, with a mission to marshal sports content over Gannett’s 82 daily newspapers, 23 television stations, USA Today and digital assets, including USAToday.com." Gannett has "hired longtime editorial executive Morgan to lead the news effort." Morgan was Yahoo Sports Exec Editor "before he left in June." The goal is to "expand the relevancy and impact of the USA Today brand in sports, while balancing and enhancing sports content within Gannett’s local print products and their accompanying sites." With Morgan just starting, new editorial products "are still being planned, but they will be gradual and won’t be readily apparent until 2012." Beusse said, "By midyear, we should look wholly different." Lefton reports an industry launch "during Super Bowl week in Indianapolis is being planned." USA Today’s Sports Media Group’s sales will be "directed by Lazarus, who joins as senior vice president/head of multimedia sales." Also joining is Squires, "former sports marketing and Olympic director at SI, now senior vice president of sports marketing, who will direct league relationships." Von Stade, "longtime Velocity/Team Epic senior vice president, is also on board as vice president/properties, under which he will develop and sell properties around print franchises like the paper’s college football coaches poll" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 10/31 issue).
