8 ways ESPN wows its audience with superlative content

Embrace chaos. Make your mantra ‘Best screen available.’ And pursue perfection. The lessons apply to communicators who don’t deliver scores, insights, and catch phrases.

Ragan Insider Premium Content
Ragan Insider Content

Editor’s note: This story and video clip are taken from Ragan’s new distance-learning portal RaganTraining.com. The site contains more than 200 hours of case studies, video presentations, and interactive courses. For membership information, please click here.

You thought it was tough in your league. Consider the brawlers ESPN trades punches with every day.

Fox Sports. USA Today. Sports Illustrated. Along with Web and blog newcomers like the Gleacher Report and SB Nation.

“They’re out there writing about every team that matters,” says Patrick Stiegman, vice president and editor-in-chief of ESPN.com.

So how does the network and Web colossus maintain its position as the top player in a hockey-style free-for-all?

Stiegman—who oversees daily news, analysis, multimedia, editorial quality, and digital design—offers a rink-side view of his game:

1. Embrace chaos.

ESPN.com used to be the sun around which all the digital properties rotated, Stiegman says. Nowadays, it’s chaos theory.

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.