ESPN's 'Blog Buzz' Segment Fails Miserably

Five years late, SportsCenter has decided to embrace independent (note that word, we’ll be coming back to it) sports blogging with a new segment they debuted this morning called “Blog Buzz.” (Watch out for “Twitter Treats” in 2014!) SportsBusiness Journal tells us more:

A new feature called “Blog Buzz” launches this morning on “SportsCenter,” giving independent bloggers a voice on ESPN programming for the first time. Blog Buzz, provided by Sports Media Challenge’s Buzz Manager, will supply to “SportsCenter” the top five sports issues being discussed each day in the blogosphere, as well as pull quotes from some of the posts.

Without context, I’m not sure anyone really cares about a list of the top five stories in the blogosphere (idea: show more highlights). But whatever. They’re acknowledging the fine work of independent sports bloggers. So, what were the top five bloggables yesterday? Here’s the shiny graphic:

So, there’s the list. According to the very definition of the segment, next comes some excerpts from blog posts about these topics. First up, a post about the Isiah Thomas aftermath, from ...

... The Sun Sentinel? As in, the major, mainstream media, Miami-based newspaper Sun Sentinel? Wow. How indie. It only took all of 30 seconds for this segment to fall flat on its face.

But let’s continue. Next up, a quote from a blog post about Anquan Boldin, from ...

 ... ESPN’s OWN FREAKING BLOGGER. Really?

And that was it. That was the end of the segment. Two excerpts from “blogs,” one from a major newspaper and the other from their own, bigger-than-Jesus, website. That couldn’t possibly be any less focused on independent sports blogging. And it’s not like there was some shortage of blogs to choose from. The Isiah, Kobe and Paulus stuff were everywhere yesterday. It continues to boggle the mind that a company so completely out of touch can rule the sporting world.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.