ESPN.com brings back SportsNation
TheState.com, October 3, 2004
By Brian Shoemaker

ESPN.COM RECENTLY re-launched SportsNation, bringing a new experience to sports fans that combines the community characteristics of the Web with the live involvement of sports-talk radio.

The cornerstone program of SportsNation will be "The Show," an "always-on" interactive forum that will be live 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. "The Show" will feature a forum for fans to talk with one another and with a regularly scheduled lineup of ESPN hosts, analysts, reporters, experts and animated virtual characters. SportsNation will deliver the latest sports news as it occurs with on-screen alerts.

Among the ESPN and ESPN.com experts and personalities that will make weekly contributions are Peter Gammons, "The Sports Guy" Bill Simmons, Chris Mortensen, Chad Ford, Rob Neyer, Kirk Herbstreit, Joe Morgan, Randy Mueller, Len Pasquarelli, Ivan Maisel, Trev Alberts and the experts at Scouts, Inc., which provides ESPN.com fans with college football, professional football and fantasy sports scouting information.

Among other aspects of SportsNation are the animated virtual hosts that anchor the section. Created for SportsNation by Oddcast, the characters will represent both real ESPN talent and fictional characters and will interact with fans.

Examples of programming in "The Show":

The Morning Quickie: ESPN.com's Dan Shanoff, in the form of an animated virtual host, gets sports fans up to speed on the day's sports buzz that they will need most at the water cooler, conducts an interactive debate on the most important topics of the day and looks ahead at the next 24 hours — all with the edgy manner that has made Shanoff's "Daily Quickie" column on ESPN.com's Page 2 so popular.

BuzzMaster: The Buzzmaster, a virtual host created for SportsNation, will moderate a daily, fan-to-fan open forum in which members of SportsNation can rant, discuss, debate and dissect the topics of their choice.

Fantasy Focus: ESPN fantasy sports experts will spend the hour discussing news, information and questions that fans need to manage their fantasy sports teams.

Peter Gammons: ESPN's baseball guru will bring his trusted voice and encyclopedic knowledge of the game to "The Show" every other Wednesday to do what he loves — talk baseball.

"The Sports Guy" Bill Simmons: ESPN.com Page 2 columnist will bring his distinctive style and sense of humor to a forum that lets him speak to the fans and lets the fan talk back.

Additionally, SportsNation will feature an enhanced clearinghouse of current and archival interactive polls, a Sports IQ trivia test section and The Pulse — a page designed to reflect hot topics in the sports world.

SportsNation also will serve as the library for ESPN25 Season of the Fan content that has been created during the past year, including the lists and fan polls from ESPN's Who's No. 1 programming and top 25 Best and Worst (1979-2004) lists.