I know Fox Sports has tried to revamp their website multiple times, but for some reason it never works. The layout looks too 80s, the scores update really slow and there's little to no video. Well Fox is going to try and change that yet again, and in the process they're going to make Tony Siragusa an Internet superstar! Via Media Week....

While most of Hill’s ideas are currently in the development stage, he is already touting one show he wants to produce for FoxSports.com, involving former NFL star Tony Siragusa, who is a sideline reporter on Fox’s Sunday NFL telecasts. A 12-year NFL veteran, Siragusa, nicknamed “The Goose,” has the type of boisterous personality that Hill thinks will stir up football fans. “Tony Siragusa will become an Internet star,” predicts Hill.

But Siragusa is not the only on-air personality Hill wants in heavy rotation on Fox-Sports.com. “We have some good people floating around here,” he says. “There are no rules for the Internet. The possibilities are endless.”

Hill is pondering the production of an online show with his Fox NFL Sunday studio team of Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson. “Their preproduction meetings could be taped and shown,” Hill says. “They are hilarious.”

He could also team up on-air commentator Daryl Johnson, a former Dallas Cowboys running back, nicknamed Moose, with Siragusa the Goose. And Hill says former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick, currently a commentator on Fox Sports game telecasts, is also in his sights to do some type of show online (even though Billick does not have a nickname ending in “oose”). FoxSports.com currently offers about four hours of original video per day, a scale that Hill hopes to dramatically expand.

Once his on-air talent is entrenched on the FoxSports site, Hill plans to slot promotional spots on each of the Fox Sports TV telecasts to alert viewers of the online programming and drive them to the site. Hill says he hopes to also beef up the fantasy sports area and “down the road” wants to offer more video coverage of sports at every level, including high school.

I don't know what we should blame for this trend (Laff-A-Lympics? Pro Stars?), but FOX has made a habit on depending on cheesy cartoons during games. First it was Slider, the goofy baseball with a face that told you about certain pitches. Next it was Cletus, the hip-hop inspired robot. And now it's Digger, the annoying gopher that pops up from the track during races.

Digger first appeared last year during NASCAR coverage, but this year they're giving him a little bit more airtime. To the tune of his own pre-race show! Via Sports Media Watch....

FOX has announced that Digger, an animated gopher that serves as the "alter-ego to FOX’s Gopher Cam," will be the subject of a series of vignettes that will air prior to the network's NASCAR telecasts this season.

The two-minute vignettes will be entitled "The Adventures of Digger & Friends", and will feature Digger, "his girlfriend Annie, best friend Marbles, Gramps and arch-nemesis Lumpy Wheels." The series' theme song will be sung by country star Keith Urban, who says of the theme: "I just hope that Digger likes it."

The series makes its debut during the NASCAR on FOX pre-race show prior to this Sunday's Daytona 500.

Digger and his associates will also "appear throughout NASCAR on FOX broadcasts as animated wipes, billboards and bugs," akin to what the network did with its robots during NHL coverage in the 1990s.

FOX hopes to use Digger & Friends to cultivate future fans. The network notes that "roughly a third of the FOX NASCAR audience" is made up of homes with children.