Plenty of sports sites make claims about being everywhere and universally appealing to fans, or instead choose to target a smaller, more defined audience. ESPN.com, conversely, makes real efforts to be as global and all-encompassing as its self-proclaimed mantra of being “The Worldwide Leader in Sports.”
ESPN.com stands as the flagship for the company’s digital operations and routinely ranks at or near the top in monthly traffic ratings. But befitting ESPN’s history of aggressively exploiting new platforms and new presentations of content, the digital platform also extends into mobile through numerous carriers, subscriber-based live and on-demand content via ESPN360.com, long-form journalism via its new E:60 project, video gaming through its partnership with EA Sports, podcasting on iTunes to supplement its own distribution of audio and video, and interactive TV.
Whether it be traditional scores and news, fantasy, chat and community, live video, audio, widgets or any other emerging area of interactivity, ESPN.com is involved in some meaningful way. The sheer tonnage of content stands as firm evidence that ESPN in no way fears inter-platform audience cannibalization, and that the company sees its digital outreach as a key pillar in its overall operations.
Refusing to sit still in 2007, ESPN.com made several acquisitions aimed at extending its massive reach into quickly growing areas such as fantasy sports and mixed martial arts. Included in the varied buys were Matthew Berry’s Talented Mr. Roto, popular basketball blog TrueHoop.com, rugby hub Scrum.com and cricket site cricinfo.com.
A partnership with Microsoft extended large batches of ESPN content onto the Xbox Live digital platform, while a deal with Verizon successfully resurrected the failed Mobile ESPN within the V Cast offering.
Said John Skipper, ESPN executive vice president for content, “We have become successful by following an astoundingly [simple] principle: Serve the fans.”
Arguably unrivaled breadth and depth of content has made ESPN.com the site all others chase.
