Goodbye newspaper websites? For sports coverage at least:
ESPN will announce it will cover local sports extensively, via new websites, in three markets today: New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, the New York Times reports.
The announcement will be made after a successful test of ESPN Chicago, which debuted in April and is already Chicago’s top sports site, the paper said.
The first four sites are characterized by ESPN executives as “only the ‘first inning’ of their effort to provide hyperlocal sports coverage in cities across the country” via websites.
ESPN will be competing for local ad dollars with the new sites. In addition, ESPN will leverage its local radio stations to help the sites, the report says.