Mark Roszel How to Draw In More Niche Market Sports Fans for SBNation Sbnation.

com, a site for sports blogs, can be enhanced in its visual rhetoric and in its organization of stories. Its main page shows five major stories regardless of the sport, which can sometimes lead to multiple stories related to the same sport. If there were seven squares showing the biggest stor and si! different sports in the other squares, viewers would immediatel identif their favorite sport"s news just b looking for the pictures, instead of having to search for a sport not immediatel on the main page. #his allows seven different sports to be covered versus five stories with the possibilit of multiple sports doubling in the news feed. Current Functionality: The Digital Worl of SBNation Sbnation.com discusses multiple sports and team news as it breaks to the people. In order to assess the power of the site it is important to take a look at it as a digital environment and wh it is needed. It is also important to look at the visuals and what makes it visuall appealing to the users. #he people who populate the site and contribute discussions on the topics give the news in each stor value, but S$%ation controls the mainstream of information the viewer sees. Sbnation.com"s communit of sports blogs covers all sports. It is a ke e!ample of &culturomics', the application of massive scale data collection and anal sis to the stud of human culture. Sbnation.com compiles facts, stats and discussion of that data. Sports talk is a need for most people and these blogs feed this need. (owever, like )S*% and local media, there are stories that aren"t given much attention on S$%ation. +urrentl , the site puts a lot of emphasis on the three major sports, %-., %$/ and M.$. 0epending on how big the news is versus those sports, %(. gets the fourth most coverage followed b college sports, either football or basketball. I would even observe that sometimes college sports get more attention than %(.. 1n a lower tier of importance are the solo sports like %/S+/R, golf, tennis and even 2-+ fighting. I would also put the team sport of soccer, both national and Major .eague Soccer in that lower tier. 3isual breakdown, 4st tier, %-. 6%0 tier, 8R0 tier, 9#( #I)R, 5 %(. M.S %/S+/R %$/ 5 M.$

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What SBNation Nee s to !row to More "sers I believe that S$%ation can be enhanced in its visual rhetoric and in its organization of stories. #hese changes are about directing the attention in a new or different direction and showing a new possible position that hasn"t been considered before that shifts values. (ere is a recent screen grab of the mainstream on a slow sports da ,

:ou have the most major news which had just ended most recentl , 2S Soccer, followed b big golf news, M.$ news in two squares and %/S+/R in the fifth square. (ere is a recent screen grab of the mainstream on a more preferred sports da ,

:ou have a major stor for M.$ about fastballs, bumping 2S Soccer to the second square, college basketball news, recap of M.$ news and the same golf stor from the da before this one.

I know having been in stor meetings and pitching stories for news shows at the 1rlando %$+ affiiliate that ou want to get the major stories at the front and on slower da s it"s good to get in specials like the M.$ piece on fastballs, but I would argue that the 2S Soccer stor is still the biggest news. I believe the news mainstream needs to keep it to one stor for each sport as opposed to having two M.$ stories at once like on these two da s. If ou take awa one of the baseball stories and add a different sport, it will keep more viewers since the don"t have to go searching for their sport of interest. How to Bring In More #iewers /s I"ve said, the main page currentl shows five major stories regardless of the sport, which can sometimes lead to multiple stories related to the same sport on the front page. If there were seven squares, showing the biggest stor in the largest square and si! different sports in the other squares, it would make it more likel viewers will identif their favorite sport"s news just b looking for the pictures instead of having to search for a sport not immediatel on the main page. :ou need to shift our attention to the S$%ation audience that feels left out and alienated b the mainstream, niche fan bases like %/S+/R and soccer. %/S+/R and 2.S. soccer have large fan bases that are left out in the media. ;hile the ma not be %-., %$/ or M.$ numbers, I would argue <as a big %(. fan m self= that their fan bases are as high as %(. in /merica. %(. is to %orthern %orth /merica and +anadians what %/S+/R is to the South and 2.S. soccer is to people with strong roots in )urope and South /merica. .iving in the 1rlando area with a budding 1rlando soccer team on its wa to entering M.S, I can sa there are a good >,???@ fans alone in 1rlando looking for a good source for soccer information. Multipl that b the number of teams in other cities that either have no major pro teams or one like 1rlando and ou have over >?,??? potential viewers ou can add just from M.S. #he 1rlando %$+ affiliate sports department pa s special attention to its soccer team because of this and if it"s good enough for a sports cast that can onl fit in 859 stories on an average night, it"s good enough for the front page of S$%ation. How $ %ayout Change Can Increase Traffic Anowing the fickle nature of the /merican public, ou know how short the attention span of an average person is when looking at something. If the average sports fan goes onto S$%ation looking for %/S+/R, 2.S. Soccer or some other lower tier sport coverage, the "ll go somewhere else. I know from searching for %/S+/R events information for m internship, there isn"t great web coverage for this sport. :ou can essentiall become the source for %/S+/R fans with ease b making a minor attempt at covering the events with importance. If ou dedicate a square to each sport and dedicate professional writing to each piece of work like the professionalism found in the M.$ fast ball stor , ou can draw in over a possible 4??,???@ viewers with minimal ease and word of mouth amongst

their fan base. #his will obviousl lead to an increase in commercial banners on highl trafficked pages increasing revenue to the site and the authors of the content. &lan for $ttack I plan to re5design the entire front page to increase traffic for viewers looking for less mainstream sports. #he site can focus on more than five sports in the space allotted to the five &major' stories. :ou want to give &superstar' attention to as man sports as possible, so ou don"t alienate fans in niche fan bases. )ven though ou have the bar above the pictures listing each sports individual base, ou might not get viewers there if ou turn them off at the beginning. 1bviousl , if there is nothing going on for the sport that da , the fan base will not e!pect something immediatel present. 4. Aeep it prominent <most important news at the front= 6. Aeep it immediate <most recent news following the biggest news= 8. Aeep it engaging for the most possible viewers <show as man different sports in each square, not repeating an = 9. Aeep it visual appealing <adding two squares to the mainstream adding in two more different sports= #hat will allow B different sports to be given prominence in the minds of the fans. $elow those pictures will be the sports not covered in the squares followed b past stories identified b sport and the time the were posted. Step 4, /dd two squares to the five stor main news stream giving B stories to cover Step 6, 0evote a stor to seven different sports in the squares, increasing the number of people appeased at first glance. Step 8, .ist past stories in descending order below it Step 9, .abel the stories b sport and time the were posted to keep the viewer aware of how old the stor is before the click on the link. #his will keep more users engaged and active for longer on S$%ation.