Welcome to our world

East Alabama Sports Today officially launches today having already made a dent

Welcome aboard!

If you have made your way onto this page it’s clear you can’t get enough local sports news and are seeking a quality alternative to the information currently at your disposal.

At East Alabama Sports Today our vision is to provide quality coverage of the wide, wide world of local sports that surrounds you. And it is a lot bigger than you might think.

High school sports dominate the calendar for nine months of the year, but there are compelling stories across the board. There’s an active golf community, a vibrant runners’ world, youth and rec sports that get lost in the summertime shuffle, Jacksonville State, Talladega and much more. There definitely is enough to keep the content flowing and East Alabama Sports Today is committed to bring it to you.

“I believe local sports is lacking the coverage it deserves, and we’re going to give that to the people in this area and get them engaged and excited,” East Alabama Sports Today publisher Kenny Wright said. “You’ve got kids who are sitting behind X-boxes and Play Stations all day and it’s kind of sad when you go out to the ball fields and you’ve got three schools having a hard time putting together baseball teams because there’s not enough kids out there (playing).

“People just aren’t excited about sports like they should be. I think we can get people fired up because I remember when I was a kid it was a big deal being in the paper. The paper is kind of old hat now. Today’s paper is on the web. It’s mobile. It’s everywhere. You’ve got kids coming up who want to pull out there mobile phone, see a mobile-friendly version of a sports site and get news, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re going to give good quality coverage to the community – free – and get people excited about local sports again.”

We think we’ve given you a pretty nice sampling of what to expect from www.easportstoday.com in the three weeks we’ve spent kicking the tires before today’s official launch. There have been stories about Mikey Monday’s run to the YMCA swimming nationals, high school football teams preparing for the season ahead, youth baseball teams striving for state titles. And golf – lots of golf – and that will continue to be a fixture on the site.

We’ll continue to cover all these things – and more. And try to have a little fun along the way.

“There are so many stories out there that don’t get told because of a lack of time, lack of space or perceived lack of interest,” said Al Muskewitz, the website’s Content Editor/Senior Writer. “We don’t have those limitations. I’m so excited on so many levels to be involved with this project, it’s unbelievable. To me, variety is the spice of life and that’s what will keep us fresh.”

While the site will spotlight the goals and achievements of local athletes and players, it will remain above all a journalistic enterprise, as evidenced by recently posted stories of unpleasant incidents involving local college athletes and programs. It is not a message board nor a blog nor a digital version of talk radio to vent about some coach running the ball in the fourth quarter instead of passing to move the chains, but there will be opportunities for you to interact with the site and comment on the stories you read on East Alabama Sports Today.

There will be news here and we’ll let you know it, but we won’t tell you what to think. Through it all, the motto driving us is Good News, Good Stories, Good Reads … No Favorites.

“I think it’s very important to stay true to the stories,” Wright said.

Wright, a local web publisher, offered a sports media venture several years ago with a High School Gameday website that flourished in its audience but phased away because its business concept was ahead of its time. At one time, Wright said, the site had more unique visitors than the local newspaper had subscriptions.

“I remember thinking what a feat that was,” he said. “The problem at that time was people really didn’t get on-line advertising. … Now everything is going to the web and mobile and apps and reaching people. We were just ahead of ourselves.”

We introduced East Alabama Sports Today as a Facebook page in conjunction with the Calhoun County Golf page and the initial response was overwhelmingly positive. The community wants another outlet for its sports news, and here it is.

“I believe if we do great editorial, cover the things the community wants to read about — local sports, local news and events – it’s going to work,” Wright said.

Welcome aboard and enjoy the ride with us.

Related Posts

• 
  C(igar)USA
• 
  Playoff scoreboard
• 
  Mims-to-Taylor

You must be logged in to post a comment Login