New York Sports Blog

Topic:

For my project, I will be creating a blog website about the sport scene in New York. As a lifelong New Yorker, I see the impact that the sports around us have on our daily lives. Whether it’s a good Knicks team or a big splash in free agency for the Mets, sports is the one thing that can unify an otherwise unified city. New Yorkers are always looking for different opinions and sources to read. The majority of people in the city have to take public transportation on their way to work or to any other place that they may go. People are always looking for different sources to read along these commutes. Professionally, I would like to do something in the sports world. This blog is a stepping stone into the insight and information that I would need to know in order to make it into that world.

Form and Tech:

For the website itself, I will be creating it using wordpress. For every article, I think that it is necessary to add its own unique identity. As I said, I would like to focus on all sports and teams in the New York area, so this helps me to diversify each article with the teams. Specifically, if I have a Knicks article, I will be using a Knicks theme, including using their colors. If I am writing an article for the Rangers, then I will follow that format for them. This would allow my website to stand out and be more exciting and unique. I also believe that a website like this has to be extremely easy accessibility wise. I do not want someone getting confused on where a certain article is. A central homepage where all of the content on the website is integrated is important. For this, I will be using wordpress. Also, to create certain aspects of the website and branding I will be using Illustrator. Two websites that do a great job of what I am trying to accomplish are Bleacher Report and AMNY’s sports page.

Audience:

The primary audience for my website is New York Sports fans. I am going to be focusing on storylines that are not getting enough attention throughout the sports world. I think if you talk to the average New York Sports fan, they would agree that the rhetoric from the national news media about our team is old and tired. People are constantly looking for opinions and news from people who are actively watching their teams, not just researching it for a segment for a news show. My secondary audience would be younger readers. Since it is a blog, it is seen as something taken less seriously, or just not hard facts. Older readers of sports news generally do not read the opinion based articles on ESPN, but rather they will be checking to see what trades or signings are going on. However, the younger generation of sports fans are intrigued with seeing different views on their favorite players and teams, even if it doesn’t fit their viewpoint. Sports is something that people can talk about for hours and blog pieces and other more opinionated sports articles help to feed conversations.

Prior Experience and Education:

As far as prior experience goes, I have created a website in brackets before for class. I have also worked with wordpress and have done some other blog writing in another class. I have some experience, but I am eager to learn more about managing the website itself. For my website that I created in brackets, it was a portfolio. I am excited to take my knowledge of building a website and using it to put up content consistently, rather than having a portfolio site that is basically done after it’s built. I think this project incorporates everything that I’ve done in the COM school at SJU. The skills to build the website are important, but I think that the main thing that I will take away from my COM classes is how to actually reach your audience. This will be a challenge throughout the semester with each individual article, but my COM courses have taught me to think about how to communicate with the reader to make them gain all of the information as you want them to.

Research:

The bulk of my research will come from watching games and staying informed on the different storylines that are happening. However, I will also have to research and learn how to style and customize certain things in wordpress. I have not really researched this at all, however, I have done CSS work and I believe that I will be able to catch on fairly quickly. Also, there are resources in the classroom that I can use such as Bill who will be able to help me if I am struggling with styling my site.\

Obstacles:

An obstacle that I can see happening is being overwhelmed with the workload. I would like to make this blog as current as possible. This means weekly articles and making sure that the content is consistent throughout the website. I do plan on this being a blog, however the quality of the writing should remain the same. I feel like this will be my only potential real obstacle. I am confident in being able to design my website and deal with any technical issues that may occur.

Timeline:

The first step for me is getting my website up and running right away. I would like to be finished with this by the end of week four. My project is going to be extremely content based, so it is important that I can start getting content out as soon as possible. The important thing is to get the domain and website right away. After that is done I can start posting content as well as style the website. Like I said, it is a content based website, so I believe that I should try and get posts out right away, however I will be styling at the same time. My goal however is to be done with styling the website by the end of week 5. My goal for the overall website is to complete the styling and designing of the website early on so I can focus on writing articles. After the styling is done, depending on how feasible it is to do, I would like to go from writing one article a week to two. This will really give my website the amount of content that I think it should have.