A Sip of Sports: Who We are and What We Want to Accomplish

 

Over the last few weeks our viewership has dramatically increased. We want to thank everyone who has taken the time to stop in and read our page. I thought I would tell everyone why we decided to do this, how we hope you will use us and what you can do to help us grow.

 

Why?

 

Why start a sports blog? Because political blogs are too uncivilized. But really, I’m a sports junkie from a sports-centered home from a sports historian father. I love sports, I love to watch it, I love to read about it and I love to play it. However, I do not like the options of sports consumption out there today.

I have watched and read and in all ways consumed ESPN for years and years. But the more I watched it the more dissatisfied I became with it for four main reasons.

1. They have a blatant East Coast, major market bias
2. They have a sports coverage bias
3. Their history and coverage does not extend past their own history.
4. Trying to find scores and news quickly is difficult

ESPN and most other Sports Networks (Fox Sports, NBCSN, etc.) focus and report from the East Coast and that tendency comes off in their news. It comes off in how and what they cover. They tend to discount PAC-12 or the BIG 12 in college football. They tend to cover the major markets versus the smaller markets in the NFL, NBA and MLB. I live in the center of the country (literally and figuratively) in Texas. I have lived in so many parts of the country from big cities to small college towns I bring a very different perspective to the national sports conversation. I hope through my coverage communities and teams that feel underrepresented in the national conversation will have more of a voice.

The major sports news networks are very much tied to the sports they have contracts with (I’ve written a whole post here). This means they put a lot of time and coverage into the major money sports like the NFL, NBA and College Football. I enjoy these sports very much and as you can see cover them extensively. But I love sports. Not just the big sports. I want to know what happening in the less popular sights. Who won the Field Hockey NCAA Championship this year? Who has the best Men’s Volleyball team? Who is the best NASCAR driver of this year? I want to know and I believe there is a large portion of the sports-consuming community that does as well.  I will do the research and share it with you. I want A Sip of Sports to be a one-stop-shop for all the sporting news, not just the big money making sports.

I love history, especially sports history. I did a lot of sports history research while getting my degree in college and I do not feel like the other sports news outlets share sports stories and lore that go before their inception. Major League Baseball that has a rich history over 140 years old, but how much of that history do you know? The NFL existed before the Super Bowl, do you know who were the winners and champions of years past? You know the names of Jordan and Bird, but do you know Chamberlin and Russell? I promise to cover the sports of times gone on to make you a more literate sports fan. When you hear someone make the argument of Greatest of All-Time, you will know the history of All-Time and not just the television and cable time period.

I also want to be easy to use and a quick way to find the scores and matchups that matter. If you look at ESPN.com right now it is full of story after story. They are great at covering many stories and at different levels. However, I have found finding the most important stories or scores quickly to be difficult. I will solve that problem. The scores you need to know about will be quick to find. Everything posted about scores should take you just minutes to read and the same amount of time to find.

Sports we cover:

NFL, College Football, MLB, NBA, College Basketball, NASCAR, Golf, Tennis, Olympic Sports (even on non-Olympic years), NHL, Soccer and all the NCAA National Championships. Some times I will cover events versus the whole sport, for example I will cover the Indianapolis 500 and the New York and Boston Marathons. I try to be all inclusive in the sports covered.

How to use us:

We hope you will come look at us every day. Our goal is to be the sight you go to when planning your sports consumption, whether it is nightly, for the weekends or for the week. If you are not a passionate follower of sports we are a great option as well. We are a quick way to keep up with the most important and interesting sporting stories.

We post every day. We will do recurring weekly posts including the Weekend Line-up and the Weekend Clean-up, these weekly posts will give you brief highlights, previews and recaps of the weekends sports. We have A Stories You Should Know post that will occur regularly that tells stories of people and games of times past that will enrich your knowledge of the sporting past. I also share personal stories of how sports have impacted my life and the lives of others.

I do not report breaking news but rather collect news and news stories all in one place. For example, the Ezekiel Elliott suspensions of the NFL season is confusing and constantly changing. I read all of the stories and present it in a way that will allow you to understand the basics of the story while also linking you to more in-depth stories. In the case of kneeling for the National Anthem I have collected a series of informed opinions by others and collected them all in one place so you can come to your own conclusions.

 

How to help us grow?

Use us. Come look at our content, comment when you disagree or find a mistake (it’s just me y’all, no editors or fact checkers, I promise I’ll make mistakes and also that I’ll always try to correct them) and share your favorite posts through e-mail or social media. Getting our name out as far and wide as we can will help us grow.  We plan to get advertisers to develop revenue and have some other plans to grow our small business. But what advertisers want and what we need is viewers. We need people to look and peruse and share. That is what will help us grow.

So please subscribe and follow us so you can get the news right to your e-mail. Like us on Facebook and Twitter to know when a new post is up and see the videos and photos we share there. Share us with your friends, whether they are sports snobs or sports illiterate.

Most importantly, we hope you enjoy and want to return.