ESPN is essentially a news agency except the only focus is sports. It has become so widely exalted that most news networks barely cover sports at all. That being said, every story in ESPN The Mag, or on the site, is about sports or has some connection to sports. The magazine is organized into sections; first there are a bunch of short commentaries from their bloggers, those are usually followed by some long and deep articles. The final portion of the magazine is organized by sport: baseball, football, basketball etc... The magazine is in full color and is very large for a magazine, it's about the size of the Rocky Mountain News we saw in class. For a major publication it has a lot of photos, usually the longer articles will have a lower photo per word ratio. One of the things that draws me to it is that there are very few adds compared to other magazines, and most of the ones that do make it in are for clothes companies. Most of them seem relevant; I would buy those labels' products if I wasn't so poor, I mostly just shop at Ross Dress for Less. The main difference between the mag and the website is that the site gets updated probably over 100 times a day, by all the various bloggers across the country that write for it. All the articles that appear in the mag are written solely for the mag, however when the issue is first released they will have the feature article posted on the site for everybody to read. The main focus of the magazine seems to take a much deeper look into the sports world, where as the site's main purpose is to report stuff as soon as it happens. The mag tries to write articles that want to be timeless, addressing a social issue within the sports world, like steroid use. The website however operates on a much more neutral level and tries to remain objective in its sports reporting, it does have a lot of opinion columns and blogs though.
The biggest difference between the two is that this magazine appears to target a younger internet savvy audience, unlike sporting news and sports illustrated, ESPN The Mag rarely covers golf. Baseball even gets a lot less run that other publications, and during football season that is pretty much all the mag will be about, which I love!!!! The biggest strength of the mag I think is the little ticker that runs along the bottom of each page, it has random sports facts that I can never seem to find anywhere else. I would have to say that the sites greatest asset is that it updates constantly, I will sometimes check the site 10 times in a day. And 9 times out of 10 it seems like there is something new. For me, I would have to say that the biggest short comings for both publications would have to be that they don't devote the majority of their time to football!!! I do go to other full time football sites but they aren't the same high quality that ESPN delivers. So yea more football, and more Green Bay Packers!!!!
As I mentioned above, it would seem that the target audience is for the a.d.d. youth of today, as opposed to old timers who play golf or watch baseball all day. The adds seem to reflect this, brands like Captain Morgan and Perry Ellis are regular contributors. I wouldn't say that there are any offensive messages, but there is all kinds of jock stereotyping going on. Although i don't think that there is a sports magazine in the world that you couldn't apply that to.
I personally prefer the online version, the fact that it is free has a lot to do with this. And I think that the website serves it audience better as there is 10 times the content and its all updated so rapidly.
Another reason that I like the online version is the forums. I'm a regular poster on there, especially when it comes to Mike Vick. When ever there is an article posted about him a ton of people leave messages like, "I hope you break your leg and ruin your career!" or "I hope something bad happens to him." And first off I'm a dog person, I'm very good with dogs and I watched the dog whisperer all the time when I had the nat geo channel. Now I'm not condoning his actions in any way but it's like people forget that he went to a FEDERAL PRISON for 18 months and lost every penny he had ever earned. Peoples polarization over killing/torturing dogs seems so irrational to me where there are other people in the league who killed other PEOPLE and nobody seems to care. Leonard Little killed a motorist while driving drunk (BAC of .19, the legal limit is .08) and then was a douche about it and got another DWI 5 years later. Most people nowadays don't even know who he is even though he was on those Rams Super Bowl teams. Ray Lewis, is lucky that the only person who maintained that he was a murderer was also an ex-con. So I don't know, the outrage over Mike Vick just seems disproportionate and irrational. After all he paid a much higher price than that of people who killed another human being and people are still saying that they wish he had been executed. It just seems as if there are so many other people who are more deserving of their ire but receive very little if any national negative attention. Donte Stallworth only went to jail for 30 days after killing somebody!!!! I mean c'mon w.t.f.!?!?! Oh, and I cant forget Ben Rothlisburger getting off of a rape(s) charge because the girl and all her friends were "intoxicated."
The main thing that I learned is that once I have a computer connected to my toilet I will never need another magazine again.
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