Sports News Portal

Being in New York, I see many people play racing video games, but never keep up with the racing news. If you were to live in Manhattan, it would never be noticed: people prefer sports such as baseball and football as opposed to motorsports or most vehicular types of sports. It is rare to find any news about any events in New York unless you hear about a bad crash on the tracks. To find more fans and information other than the internet, you need only look to places outside of New York.

While I was in Chattanooga on a business trip, I was pleasantly surprised to see what avid race fans they were and how many news stations were reporting all the hot racing news. Any sports bar I went to had at least one race being aired and the passion for the sport was unbelievable; it could be felt through the air.

After doing some research, I learned that Japan as well as many European nations such as Italy can be very passionate about racing as well. In their sports channel news, it is not uncommon to see them bring up the major racing events of the day. Japan however often speaks primarily of drift racing where it is an extremely popular motorsport.

It was good to see in my travels that even though New York may not have a large fan base, there are still many other groups worldwide who enjoy hearing racing news and love motorsports as much as I do.

There are literally thousands of places on the web to get your sports news information. Whether you want the latest headlines, up to the second scores, editorials, or in depth analysis, there are a myriad of choices for you. While some sites only offer one or two of those things, there are several that offer all of those and more. My Top 5 are below:

5. Yahoo! Sports (sports.yahoo.com) – this site is all substance and no flash. It looks essentially the same as it did five years ago. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just doesn’t knock your socks off. Any information that you need is readily available and up to date. Columnists aren’t as well known as the top sites, but they are solid.

4. FOX Sports (msn.foxsports.com) – a few years ago this site was a mess. It was the anti-Yahoo! – all flash and no substance. In the past few years they’ve toned down the flash and increased the substance. The live gamecasts at the top of the page are extremely innovative. For example, for a baseball game you not only see the score, but also an overview of the diamond and what runners are on base. If you are interested in a specific game you can roll your mouse over it and get more details. If FOX keeps innovating like that, they won’t be number 4 for long.

3. Sports Illustrated (sportsillustrated.cnn.com) – this site excels in two things – editorials and rumors. They have THE best writers (they are Sports Illustrated after all) and they do an excellent job of providing tons of content. Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback column is absolutely priceless. They also compile a ‘Truth and Rumors’ section for each of the major sports. It’s essentially a compilation of all of the rumors from local newspapers across the country. The best part about it is it’s free, unlike ESPN’s rumors.

2. CBS SportsLine (cbs.sportsline.com) – everything is great about SportsLine – they are often the first to break news, gamecasts are innovative and effective, and for what it’s worth the fantasy sports are the best on the web. Well, they are great at everything except editorials and analysis, and they are horrible at that. Tony Mejia, Dennis Dodd, Pete Prisco, and Greg Doyle are the worst group of sports writers on the web. Where are the editorials from their on-air personalities like Jim Nantz and Billy Packer? ESPN and FOX manage to get their on-air personalities to write, maybe CBS should consider it. Read the comments at the bottom of any article by any of the aforementioned writers and you’ll realize that I’m not the only one that thinks they are horrible.

1. ESPN (www.espn.com) – they are consistently ahead of the curve in every one of the important aspects. They are the worldwide leader in sports and they show no signs of giving up that crown on the web. I commend them for getting their best personalities – John Clayton, Steven A. Smith, Barry Melrose, and Peter Gammons – to write consistently good articles. The only downside is that too much information is hidden in the ‘Insider’, ESPN’s paid service. It’s frustrating to read a headline, click, and then realize that you can’t read the story because you have to pay for it.

According to the opposition, Spain under Zapatero will fall apart. I wonder whether it will ever go that far. What surprises me as a foreigner in Spain is the national pride broadcasted in the Spanish media.

This is most visible in Sports. Not so much during the Eurocup but in general, sports is shown on television (mainly) when Spain is involved. We get to see tennis matches (when Nadal or Ferrer are playing), Formula one (Alonso), the NBA of the US (when the Lakers are involved, or more in specific when Gasol is playing), etc, etc, etc. The presented sports news has always a Spanish component.

This is in line with the viewers point; for example in football, in Spain people watch the Eurocup in general when Spain is playing and much less when other national teams are broadcasted.

A newspaper like El Pais has reformed its structure recently and much of the change was to alter this image of a national newspaper, dedicated to report Spanish news with some global extras here and there. Now the global news is much more prominent.

But not all newspapers have followed this initiative. In many cases, when reading foreign stories, I wonder why the story was selected and very often the trigger was a Spanish involvement. Like for example in Mozambique:

- A Spanish nun is examining the trade of organs in Mozambique (Elmundo). Or, more recently a story in the newspaper ABC reports about malaria in Mozambique. In the end, having read the story it is not so much about the malaria problem in Africa or more specific in Mozambique, but about a Spanish investigator who is close to having found a vaccine against this disease. Indeed Spain has contributed much in the battle against malaria (one reads), but for the accidental foreign resident there are too many of such biased stories.

And then the question is “what is Spain” and how about the quest for independence of its communities? Because in many of those stories the Spanish involvement is reduced to a specific region. In the case of malaria in Mozambique the involvement came from someone of Barcelona, Catalunya…

In other cases the involvement is from someone from Mallorca, from Asturias, Andalucia or the Basque Country. And so far, that is all Spain (at least, perceived by the outside world).

H.J.B.