ESPN.com

ESPN.com

Web address	espn.go.com
Commercial?	yes
Registration	available, but not required
Available in	English
Created by	ESPN, Inc.
Launched	July 1993 (1993-07) (as ESPNet.SportsZone.com)
Alexa rank	77 (November 2015)
Current status	active

ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN and a division of ESPN Inc. Since launching in July 1993 as ESPNet.SportsZone.com, the website has developed numerous sections including: Page 2, SportsNation, ESPN3, ESPN Motion, My ESPN, ESPN Sports Travel, ESPN Video Games, ESPN Insider, ESPN.com's Fanboard, ESPN Fantasy Sports, ESPNU.com, and ESPN Search. ESPN.com also has partnerships with MLB.com, NBA.com, NFL.com, WNBA.com, MLSsoccer.com NHL.com, Baseball America, Golf Digest, Scouts Inc., Jayski.com, USGA.org, Sherdog.com and Masters.org.

It also has sections devoted to certain sports and leagues including: the National Hockey League, National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, NASCAR, Indy Racing League, NCAA, Golf, Soccer, Women's Sports (ESPNW), cricket, and eSports. Each section contains pages devoted to: scores, teams, schedules, standings, players, transactions, news wires, injures and columnists pages.

Some notable ESPN.com columnists are John Buccigross, Chris Mortensen, John Clayton, Adam Schefter, Andy Katz, Bill Simmons, Jayson Stark, Buster Olney, Gene Wojciechowski, Scoop Jackson, Pat Forde, Jim Caple, and Michael Smith. The website was part of the MSN portal from 2001 to 2004. ESPN launched a Spanish language website in 2000, ESPN Deportes.com. The content of some ESPN.com articles is argued to have been plagiarized.

ESPNW.com

Founded in July 2009 by Laura Gentille, ESPNW.com strives to be the premier site for women’s sports. With a focus on women’s sports and female athletes, espnW.com provides comprehensive coverage of the opportunities and challenges facing female athletes today as well as topical sports news and long-form feature stories. The site has garnered accolades for coverage of women’s sports, especially the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Women's United Soccer Association. Other events and leagues that received in-depth coverage include the Women’s College World Series and the Women's National Basketball Association. The site serves to inspire and inform today’s female athlete and fan. It provides an engaging environment where women are an integral part of the sports conversation, share their perspective on women’s and men’s sports and find the motivation and support for their athletic goals and interests.

Founder and Editor in Chief

Laura Gentile (founder) was instrumental in launching espnW. Prior to researching and working to launch espnW, Gentile served as vice president, chief of staff at ESPN. In that role, Gentile worked directly with George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports, on all aspects of the company’s business. She played an instrumental role in the development of “ESPN on ABC,” which brought the ESPN brand to the ABC television platform. Before working in the office of the president, Gentile was senior director of brand management within ESPN’s consumer marketing department. In that role she was responsible for driving the marketing direction for properties including the NFL, SportsCenter and the NHL. Gentile joined ESPN in January 2003 as director, advertising and marketing. Her first assignment was the positioning and promotion of ESPN25, ESPN’s year-long 25th anniversary campaign that celebrated sports fans and created ESPN’s first online community of fans.

Alison Overholt (editor in chief) develops comprehensive content strategies for espnW through digital, mobile, social, print, video and events. Overholt first joined ESPN in 2005 as general editor, sports business and lifestyle, for ESPN The Magazine. In 2007, she was elevated to senior editor, special projects, ESPN The Magazine, overseeing its enterprise and investigative team, as well as managing the publication’s Olympics and X Games coverage. In 2009, Overholt was part of ESPN’s early efforts to research and develop a sports media offering for women and was espnW’s founding editor. From 2011 - 2014, Overholt ran her own digital content strategy firm, crafting social media and digital publishing strategies, developing apps, and producing short films for clients including Hearst Publishing, The New York City Economic Development Corporation, NASDAQ, The Robin Hood Foundation, Trinity Wall Street and more. She returned to espnW in the spring of 2014.

ESPNW Summit

Every October, espnW brings together sports industry leaders and top female athletes for its annual Women + Sports Summit presented. The two-day conference includes work sessions, presentations and activities geared towards advancing the agenda of women in sports. The continual success espnW Summits demonstrates the enormous interest in developing ideas that will fuel further growth. Notable past speakers and attendees include Kevin Plank (Under Armour CEO and founder), Michele Roberts (the first woman to serve as president of the NBA Players’ Association), Katie Hnida (the first woman to play and score in an NCAA Division I football game), Hilary Knight (women’s Olympic hockey player), Tamika Catchings (WNBA All-Star), Abby Wambach and Carli Lloyd (U.S. Women’s National Team members, FIFA Women’s World Cup champions).

Partners and Sponsors

Gatorade, Nike, and P&G were the first three founding partners of ESPNW and provide exclusive content for the site.

Awards

2005

• April: Finalist two categories for the ESPY awards
• May: People's Voice Awards for Best Sports Service

2003

• November: Online News Association's Online Journalism Award for General Excellence
• June: Webby Award and People's Voice

Webby Award (top-ranked sports site)

• May: EPpy Award for best internet sports service
• February: Media Magazine Best of the Net Award - ESPN.com ranked #1 in the Men's and Sports Category

2002

• December: Time Magazine rates ESPN.com the best sports site on the web
• July: ESPN.com Honored With Prestigious 2002 Webby Award
• June: GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism Article for the May 2001 article "Sports World Still a Struggle for Gays," penned by Bill Konigsberg

2001

• July: People's Voice Webby Award for sports, International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

2000

• May: Webby Award and People's Voice Webby Award, (top-ranked sports site), International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
• April: Creative Excellence Award, International Web Page Awards
• April: "Best Overall Quality," (Sports), Brill's Content
• March: Only fantasy games included in "Yahoo! Internet Life's Top 40 Free Games On The Net"
• February: "Forbes Favorite," (Top-ranked sports site), Forbes
• January: "Best Sports Hub," Yahoo! Internet Life's 100 Best Sites For 2000

Columnists

New York

Ian O'Conner
Wallace Matthews
Rich Cimini
Johnette Howard
Ndrew Marchand
Ohm Youngmisuk

Local sites

ESPN started local chapters of its website in response to the decline of local sports coverage available as newspapers continue to go out of business across the country. Each page covers local professional and college teams, hiring locally known writers, and in some cases making use of the city's ESPN Radio affiliate. In markets where the ABC Owned Television Stations owns a station, their sports coverage is incorporated with the corresponding ESPN local site. Some local sites have expanded into high school sports coverage.

Current

• ESPNBoston.com - with affiliate WEEI
• ESPNChicago.com - with WMVP and WLS-TV
• ESPNCleveland.com - with affiliate WKNR
• ESPNDallas.com - with KESN
• ESPNLosAngeles.com - with KSPN and KABC-TV
• ESPNNewYork.com - with WEPN-FM and WABC-TV

See also

• ESPN3

External links

• Official website (Mobile)