ESPN’s core business is in TV, but the company "continues to make bets that expand its scope beyond the biggest screen in the house" including a new original TV show called “We The Fans,” according to Sahil Patel of DIGIDAY. The show, which will "document the lives" of a group of Bears season ticket holders in Soldier Field’s Section 250, "isn’t just a TV show, according to ESPN -- it’s a 'multiplatform' series that will comprise original videos made for digital and social platforms, an after-show podcast for every episode and art- and graphics-heavy reported essays, among other pieces." The program is a "massive undertaking for ESPN." As the project "moved into development and production, ESPN has been holding twice-weekly meetings with nearly 30 people who serve as point people from different areas of the company." ESPN VP & Editorial Dir of Domestic Digital Content Chad Millman said, "We all create great stuff, and everyone wants to support something that’s great, but oftentimes, the digital side is coming in on the back end of a project that was developed on TV, or the TV side is coming in on the back end of a project that was developed on digital. We wanted to do something where everyone was buying in from the beginning." ESPN will "create Instagram Stories for each episode of the show in order to profile specific fans." Millman: "We didn’t want it to just be TV series and everything else picked from that. We wanted a digital experience specific to what works on digital, a social experience specific to what works well on social." The show is "part of a broader push to modernize ESPN’s content strategy" (
DIGIDAY.com, 4/5).
