SI's Peter King launched his The MMQB website today, and he called the site a "little more experiential" than what is currently out there. King said, "It's going to take you places where you really haven't gone before in the NFL, in my opinion." He noted there will be "smart video content in connection with the site." The site's main contributors outside of King are Greg Bedard, Jenny Vrentas and Robert Klemko, and King said, "I really want them to examine the game a little bit more." King said the "challenge" with a year-round NFL website is "putting up something interesting" during the offseason. King: "The biggest thing we have to add to the equation is we have to give people a reason to come. There's too much stuff out there. We have to force people to adopt something new in their football media experience" ("The Dan Patrick Show," 7/22). King writes of the site, "We’ll be the thinking person’s site for pro football. If you follow us this season, visit TheMMQB.com three or four times a day between now and the Super Bowl, read our stories, watch our videos and listen to our podcasts ... and if after doing that you don’t think you’ve been enlightened about the sport America loves, well, then I should be fired" (MMQB.SI.com, 7/22).
THE PERFECT STORM: SI.com VP & GM Jim DeLorenzo said that the combination of King’s “star power and readers’ appetite for constant NFL coverage is ‘the perfect storm’” for the new outlet. TECHCRUNCH.com's Billy Gallagher reported The MMQB is the “first sports-centric site to spin out” from the main SI.com site. The team of writers will try to “blend top notch sports reporting and analysis with beautiful ways to display media.” DeLorenzo said that the site will “display stories and videos in ‘Pinterest-style’ tiles, and that as the writers populate it with more content, they will eventually add an endless scroll so that readers can keep accessing older stories on one page.” King said, “We’re going to try to be all things to all people. ... If we haven’t shown you the game in a different way and shown you different media to cover the game, then we’ll have failed” (TECHCRUNCH.com, 7/21). King said what is happening is "really the media is changing" and he does not "want to end up being a dinosaur." King: "I want to be able to have a life in this business and so I just try to think about what's next … (and) in the last 10 years, both social media and video have become vitally important to the job of people in the news media. I'm just trying to stay current and trying to make sure we can deliver news and great storytelling is the way people want to consume it" ("The Jason McIntyre Podcast," THEBIGLEAD.com, 7/18).
TWITTER REAX: The launch of The MMBQ site has largely drawn praise on Twitter. CBSSports.com's Bruce Feldman wrote, "Lots of compelling stuff from @SI_PeterKing & his crew on debut of http://TheMMQB.com. Many talented folks on board there." SI's Pete Thamel wrote, "Peter King's new @themmqb looks and reads great. What a striking lead image, too." CNN's Rachel Nichols wrote, "Great debut: @TheMMQB from @SI_PeterKing & crew. I wanted him to call it 'smart NFL stuff' but I guess this is better." ESPN L.A.'s Arash Markazi wrote, "Congratulations to my friend @SI_PeterKing on the launch of @theMMQB. It looks great." The Washington Post's Cindy Boren wrote, "Congrats to @SI_PeterKing @themantz and their MMQB crew for getting off the launching pad with a terrific product." Octagon First Call Managing Dir David Schwab wrote, "Smart for SI to put @SI_PeterKing @TheMMQB out as a standalone web/blog http://TheMMQB.com . It's compelling & advertisers will like it." However, B Nation's Dan Rubenstein wrote, "Congrats to SI on The MMQB -- I assume this means the @sbnation design team gets paid twice for SI's odd copy/paste effort."
