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.

The "Hill" that the article is referring to the same one that brought you all of the band shots during Fox's Bowl coverage, so I don't know if these are good ideas or not. Siragusa is certainly entertaining, but I'm not sure if people will take time out of their day to watch him on an Internet television show.

Fox Sports Rushes the Web (Media Week)

I mentioned a while back that ESPN was going to be a revamping of sorts of its website, and Ryan Spoon has your first look. Spoon, who is an ESPN Insider, got to test out the site and provide an assessment for ESPN recently. Here are his thoughts on the new look (see above)....

As an ESPN Insider, I got access to the new ESPN Beta (in other words, the new ESPN website revamp that has apparently been much of their focus for the last several months). And because I have spoken glowingly about ESPN and ESPN.com previously - I don’t feel bad being sour about ESPN Beta…. but I am and here’s why:

- It’s too much like a magazine and too little like a sports site
- The magazine layout makes it more appropriate for People / US Weekly-like content than sports
- The screen shot below demonstrates just that - the only true sports content is in small blue text on the upper right… and that’s what I want to see!
- The grid layout below the main module is visually attractive - but it’s used exclusively to promote ESPN personalities rather than content
- The new header is clearly designed to increase pageviews and make hubs out of each league / sport (the navigational drop downs were removed)
- There are five headers / navigation bars: leagues, scores, ESPN properties, ESPN.com themes, sports… HUH?!
- While I like the ESPN Red color scheme, it makes the blue, gray and brown text very difficult to read

I’ve turned the Beta off as I am more than underwhelmed… I am struggling to use the new site.

Well then. That's not a glowing review at all is it, but looking at the photos, I'd have to agree with him. At first glance, the site is aesthetically pleasing. The main photo is larger and you can tell they're pulling your eye away from news, and towards sponsored content and promotions. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but as RS said, it's really hard to find any of the "breaking news" content you might be looking for.

I've said before that I rarely go to ESPN.com anymore, and while that's true, I know a ton of people who still use it as their goto site for news. You're almost forced to use the MyESPN feature to find anything, and that might not rub readers the right way when (and if) it's officially launched.

Feel free to check it out yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

ESPN Beta (ESPN)
ESPN Beta: The Review (Ryan Spoon)
ESPN.com To Be Revamped, New Search Function Kicks Off The Process (Awful Announcing)

I was forwarded an article from Nielsen today, and I think with the end of 2008 approaching, it would be the perfect time to look at some of the amazing ratings across all Sports last year. Not only did MNF give us the most watched cable program of the year with the Cowboys-Eagles earlier this season, but Golf, the Olympics and the Super Bowl all had record breaking numbers as well. Here are some of the numbers via Nielsen....

-The most-watched global event ever (2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: 4.7 billion viewers)

-The most-watched Super Bowl ever (Giants-Patriots, Super Bowl XLII: 97.5 million viewers)

-The most-watched cable broadcast of all time (Cowboys-Eagles, Monday Night Football: 18.6 million viewers)

-The most-watched cable golf event of all time (Tiger vs. Rocco, U.S. Open Playoff: 4.8 million viewers)

-The most-watched cable baseball game ever (Red Sox-Rays, ALCS Game 7: 13.4 million viewers)

-The most-watched NBA Finals in five years (Celtics-Lakers, NBA Championship Series average: 14.9 million viewers)

-The most-watched NHL regular season game in nine years; most-watched finals in five years (Winter Classic: 2.5 million viewers; Stanley Cup, Penguins–Red Wings average: 4.5 million viewers)

-The most-watched Wimbledon final in eight years (Federer-Nadal: 5.2 million viewers)

-Ratings for sports events are 20% higher in homes with high-definition TV sets vs. total U.S.

-75 million people visited sports websites in October 2008

-11.6 million unique users logged more than 1.2 billion minutes on fantasy sports sites in 2008

-10.6 million U.S. mobile subscribers accessed sports content via the mobile Web in August 2008

Just an amazing collection of events throughout the past year, and as the ratings company also pointed out, it can be contributed to a wealth of different factors. In my opinion the main ones to consider are the actual game storylines as well the breadth of HD programming in every Sport. I'd expect the Bowl Games this Holiday Season to follow suit and we should be able to say by mid-January that this was the most watched Sports year ever.

Be sure to check out the full PDF report if you have time. There's a lot of interesting thoughts in there as well.

2008 A Banner Year in Sports? (Nielsen)

Even though I'm staunchly against the process of keeping announcers in New York (and no I still don't have a real good reason for it), the lengths at to which NBC is going to bring you and I the Games has to be commended. The latest update on the process is that NBC Sports is taking over Saturday Night Live's studio for the month. The network also has people who's sole job is to watch and pull potential highlights to immediately add to NBC's website. Sounds fun....

Stage 8H is best known as the place where Saturday Night Live is filmed. This week, though, it's been turned into an ad-hoc data center as part of NBC's efforts to stream thousands of hours of live Olympic coverage over the Internet.

Instead of the usual crop of comedians, NBC will have dozens of people watching every hour of the games, looking for highlights that it can chop up and make available on-demand. It's just one piece of an elaborate arrangement that shuttles the events in Beijing back to the U.S.

From each of the dozens of Olympic venues, a high-definition video feed is delivered over fiber-optic cables to the International Broadcast Center that has been set up in Beijing. A bunch of encoders and Windows Media servers get the video into an Internet-ready format. From there, it travels via satellite to NBC's headquarters in New York.

There, NBC actually adds a one-minute delay, allowing its cadre of live bloggers in Stamford, Conn., and elsewhere to write their text and have the video and commentary synchronized. Once ready, it goes from NBC to Limelight Networks, a content delivery network, which has 1,000 servers just for the live events sending the content to various Internet service providers, who then shuttle the content directly to their customers.

That's just nuts. The Limelight CEO is saying that he expects upwards of 1 million users at anytime, and while I think that's a little bit of wishful thinking, the numbers are certainly going to break all sorts of online records. It also might be a good option for you people who are constantly bored at work.

What it takes to bring the Olympics to the PC (CNET: Beyond Binary)

On the heels of DC Sports Bog's awkward interview with Stuart Scott last week comes this amusing clip of him saying he's scared of the Internet. Watch as Scott Van Pelt tries to tell him it's not so bad....

Now that was funny. I'm also with SVP on this one. I'm pretty sure that Stu doesn't want to spend a day looking up stuff about himself on the Internet. I'm all inclusive but I'm also a realist. With that said, you're welcome to browse if you're a sadist, Stu!

Quick note: I don't know if it's the 11pm slot, or the partnership with Van Pelt, but Stu is about 1000x more tolerable late night. Random but true.

It's not exactly the same as watching the actual game, but it seems NFL.com is going to do the best it can to make sure you're up to date during the contest. If you have an internet connection you can head to league's website tonight for what they're billing as the "the first widely available Live Online and Wireless Video NFL Game Coverage in U.S.".

Confused? I am too, but here are the details from what I can gather. NFL.com will feature a live studio show during the game consisting of Derrin Horton, Jamie Dukes, and Rod Woodson. They will show video highlights, answer questions from the readers, but most importantly...provide live Look-Ins during the contest.

The Look-Ins will come at :15 and :45 past each hour and occasionally when a team reaches the Red Zone. While it's not exactly the same as viewing the game in its entirety, it's definitely a great gesture for NFL-N to provide this to fans of both teams.

Other Features Of The Online Telecast:

- Live Stats
- A "Call The Play" Feature where you can guess the plays of each team
- Live-Blogging from NFL-N Experts On-site
- Information on how to get the NFL Network from you Cable Provider

While this seems like a great idea, I hope this doesn't turn into just one giant add for NFL Network. You can access all of the NFL-N fun at NFL.com/Live at around 8pm.

Well not exactly, but they do have an odd marketing campaign on who to select with the first pick. The Trailblazers have a website with videos of current players and local celebrities thoughts on the pick. Well, if you can call the lead singer of Everclear, "The Hippie", and Storm Large from Rockstar Supernova (also in a band called Storm Large and the Balls).

The site is actually well put together and I think the best part is the video of current players. I mean where else can you get the quote, "Travis (Outlaw) is establishing his own style- a combination of low-post finesse and aerial holy-cowery"? (click on photo for larger version)


If that's not a word, it should be. (Father of mine...do do do do do....where have you been? Try to get that out of your head for the rest of the day)

Durant or Oden (Blazers.com)