ESPN-NY Debuts With Uninspiring Lineup
[image title="Picture 3" size="full" id="16385" align="center" linkto="full" ]
ESPN-NY went live this morning, and debuted the following roster of writers that will discuss the Yankees:
Andrew Marchand (General) – Marchand has been the managing editor for ESPN Radio 1050 AM since 2007 and has provided on-air reports for over three years. He also contributes extensively to his blog SportsClicker. Previously, Marchand spent ten years at the New York Post covering TV sports and as the Mets beat writer for two years. He will cover all NY area sports on ESPNNewYork.com.
Ian O’Connor (Columnist) – O’Connor is a former a columnist with The Record of New Jersey and New York Daily News and has previously written for The New York Times and The Star-Ledger. He has also been a frequent contributor and blogger for ESPN Radio 1050 AM for the past three years. O’Connor is a New York Times best-selling author for his book titled Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus and Golf’s Greatest History.
Wally Matthews (Yankees) – Matthews has covered New York sports since 1983 as a reporter, columnist, radio host and TV commentator. He joins ESPNNewYork.com to cover the Yankees, which he’s done since the days of Stump Merrill, having worked for Newsday, the New York Post, the New York Sun and ESPN Radio 1050 AM.
As @bencs94 yesterday on Twitter, all of these writers have existing ties to ESPN 1050 that make them a natural fit for this sort of site. The issue is that none of them consistently produce high-quality content that will draw readers from the local media entities. O’Connor writes well, but as we , he lacks journalistic ethics and tends towards sensationalism rather than reasoned analysis. Marchand is simply an adequate reporter, and Matthews is a in of the , for whom hyperbole and contrarianism are legitimate writing tools. A team of writers such as Joel Sherman (best news-breaker in NY), Ken Davidoff (excellent writing skills and always fair and balanced), and Marc Carig (strong reporter who understand newer forms of analysis) would have been vastly superior to this group, and would have made ESPN-NY a daily destination for many Yankees fans. Instead, we get a group of columnists constantly looking for an athlete or executive to rip, a panic to stir, or a fanbase to anger. That sort of sensationalism tends to drive traffic, and makes ESPN’s choices perfectly understandable. ESPN had a chance to build something special, and instead chose to bring in some easy clicks. It’s unsurprising, but still sad to see.
Tagged with: Andrew Marchand • ESPN-NY • Ian O'Connor • Journalism • Media • New York • Wally Matthews
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
12 Responses to ESPN-NY Debuts With Uninspiring Lineup
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
-
LIKE TYA ON FACEBOOK
-
Recent Activity
Recent Posts
- Pettitte Brilliant Against the Reds Through 8.0 IP
- Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Cervelli’s Value
- Could Nova Be Tipping His Changeup?
- Series Preview: Interleague Play Take 1: Reds visit the Bronx
- Yanks lose 4-1
- May 17 Game Thread
- What’s different about 2012 Kuroda?
- 2012: A Freak Injury Odyssey
- Robbie’s fastball problem
Recent Comments
- hawaii dave on Could Nova Be Tipping His Changeup?
- Phil C on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Phil C on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Michael Eder on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Michael Eder on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Phil C on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Phil C on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Michael Eder on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Phil C on Game 39: Andy Take 2
- Phil C on Game 39: Andy Take 2
-
Authors
Twitter
* TYA Twitter -
* EJ Fagan -
* Matt Imbrogno -
* William J. -
* Larry Koestler-
* Moshe Mandel -
* Sean P. -
* Eric Schultz -
* Matt Warden -
-
Most poker sites open to US players also provide online casinos accepting USA players. A good example of this is BetOnline.com, where you can play 3D casino games, bet on sports or play poker from anywhere in the United States.
-
Other Links
-
Blogroll
Blogs
- An A-Blog for A-Rod
- Beat of the Bronx
- Bronx Banter
- Bronx Baseball Daily
- Bronx Brains
- Don't Bring in the Lefty
- Fack Youk
- It's About The Money
- iYankees
- Lady Loves Pinstripes
- Lenny's Yankees
- New Stadium Insider
- No Maas
- Pinstripe Alley
- Pinstripe Mystique
- Pinstriped Bible
- River Ave. Blues
- RLYW
- Steven Goldman
- The Captain's Blog
- The Girl Who Loved Andy Pettitte
- The Greedy Pinstripes
- This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes
- Value Over Replacement Grit
- WasWatching
- Yankee Source
- Yankeeist
- Yankees Blog | ESPN New York
- Yankees Fans Unite
- YFSF
- You Can't Predict Baseball
- Zell's Pinstripe Blog
Writers
- Bats (NYT)
- Blogging the Bombers (Feinsand)
- Bombers Beat
- Buster Olney
- E-Boland
- Jack Curry
- Joe Posnanski
- Joel Sherman
- Jon Heyman
- Keith Law
- Ken Davidoff
- Ken Rosenthal
- LoHud Yankees Blog
- Marc Carig
- Tim Marchman
- Tom Verducci
Resources
- Baseball Analysts
- Baseball Musings
- Baseball Prospectus
- Baseball Think Factory
- Baseball-Intellect
- Baseball-Reference
- BBTF Baseball Primer
- Beyond the Box Score
- Brooks Baseball
- Cot's Baseball Contracts
- ESPN's MLB Stats & Info Blog
- ESPN's SweetSpot Blog
- FanGraphs
- Joe Lefkowitz's PitchFX Tool
- Minor League Ball
- MLB Trade Rumors
- NYMag.com's Sports Section
- TexasLeaguers.com
- THE BOOK
- The Hardball Times
- The Official Site of The New York Yankees
- The Wall Street Journal's Daily Fix Sports Blog
- YESNetwork.com
-
Site Organization
Categories
Tags
A.J. Burnett ALCS Alex Rodriguez Andy Pettitte Baltimore Orioles Bartolo Colon Boston Red Sox Brett Gardner Brian Cashman Bullpen CC Sabathia Chien-Ming Wang Cliff Lee Curtis Granderson David Robertson Dellin Betances Derek Jeter Francisco Cervelli Freddy Garcia Game Recap Ivan Nova Javier Vazquez Jesus Montero Joba Chamberlain Joe Girardi Johnny Damon Jorge Posada Manny Banuelos Mariano Rivera Mark Teixeira Melky Cabrera Michael Pineda Minnesota Twins New York New York Yankees Nick Johnson Nick Swisher Phil Hughes Prospects Red Sox Robinson Cano Russell Martin Statistical analysis Tampa Bay Rays Yankees -
Site Stats
Couldn’t be a more disappointing lineup. Matthews rivals Lupica as the biggest ass clown around.
Mike A. @ RAB gave it the best description:
“All ESPN NY gives me is a way to ignore those writers at one convenient spot. “
So, in other words, ESPN hired three guys that fit the dumbed down ESPN mold perfectly.
I don’t mind Marchand. I have met him a couple times at talks he had at Sacred Heart in Farifield CT, and he seemed better in person. Plus, I haven’t read a lot of stupid stuff of his, unlike O’Connor and his “now that ARod is hurt, the Yankees are a better team with Ransom at 3B.” I’ve wondered why they haven’t had an ESPN New York when they have Dallas.
Tim Marchman would’ve been an excellent hire as well. His Yankee columns for the New York Sun were some of the smartest and well-written.
Agreed. There were some good hires available. Note that SI.com nabbed Posnanski, Sherman contributes, as does Marchman, among others. At least they are still dedicated to quality content.
“Instead, we get a group of columnists constantly looking for an athlete or executive to rip, a panic to stir, or a fanbase to anger. That sort of sensationalism tends to drive traffic”
This is all just my opinion, but… In fairness to ESPN, from a business standpoint, this is really all that matters. Getting “clicks” on the site is more important then the content. The content needs to appeal to the majority, and the majority doesn’t do well with the sabermetric stats (although they have been improving), so as long as they get the majority to click on their articles, they’re happy. And lets face facts, ripping an athlete or an executive is often like a train wreck; it sucks, it’s gossip, but often times people have to see it. ESPN is beyond the point of needing to have more then sensationalism to drive traffic.
Yeah checked espn this morning. Got excited about ESPN NY. Read two articles. Never going there again.
Wallace had a live chat this morning to kick off the website. I lasted maybe 5 minutes in there, but it was long enough to see this hilarious question:
“Ernie (New York, NY)
What are the odds you actually take any questions from the 99% of Yankee fans who are justifiably (angry) that you’re the guy we get as the beat reporter?”
The first two sentences of the Yankee article were pretty revealing. Obviously written for one purpose: to piss on Yankee fan’s cornflakes.
I couldn’t agree with you more Mo…calling Matthews a “Train wreck” is actually being kind. For example, I checked out his article and check below I’ve copy/pasted the opening of his article from today:
“They can buy the best players and they can buy a certain level of performance and they can certainly buy enough wins to keep them in contention year in and year out.You can even make the case that, every so often, the New York Yankees can buy themselves a World Series championship. But there is one thing not even George Steinbrenner’s checkbook can buy: the kind of luck the Yankees enjoyed last season.That is why, even though the team might look better on paper than the one that won 103 regular-season games and tore through October and early November to win its 27th championship and first since 2000, there is no guarantee that the 2010 Yankees will match the accomplishments of the 2009 version. In fact, you might be nuts to even expect such a thing. Can the Yankees do it again? Of course they can. Any team with Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera on its roster not only can win it all, but should. But will they do it again? That is the $200 million question. Last year, the Yankees not only had the best roster in baseball, they had maybe the best luck in the recent history of professional sports.”
So in his initial Yankee column, he uses the word “Buy” 4 times, “”Luck” twice, checkbook, $200 million and payroll in describing the Yankees championship season last year…This is the tired, rehashed, content he continually “produces”.
As a Yankee fan and general sports fan, this is the most disappointing of all the ESPN local launches.
As a copy editor, I can see the ESPNNewYork.com press release didn’t have much consistent copy editing on it. Now, on a lot of blogs, that’s not a big deal. You grant the occasional typo, and many bloggers can also write well. But generally, when you employ newspaper sports columnists, even the best, you need an army of editors to turn their “prose” into something readable.
If ESPN doesn’t have some editors waiting, we could at least get some good chuckles out of the error-riddled text.