ESPN Readies Local Dallas Site; Outsources Boston Ad Sales To Kraft Sports Group
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ESPN (NYSE: DIS) is launching its third city sports news site in Dallas on Monday as it seeks to tries to solidify its presence in major markets. The Dallas site follows the launch of its first local venture, ESPNChicago last April. The Dallas site debut is timed to coincide with ESPN’s Monday Night Football matchup of the Dallas Cowboys and Carolina Panthers.
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Last week, ESPNBoston was introduced and the Disney-owned sports media unit has decided to outsource its local ad sales to Kraft Sports Group. That decision has stirred some controversy about whether the partnership could present a conflict of interest. KSG, which owns the New England Patriots and the soccer franchise New England Revolution. Chris Cakebread, a Boston University professor who teaches advertising and sports marketing, tells the Boston Globe, “We’re supposed to be about transparency. How can you be transparent when you cut such a tight relationship between a media group and a team?”
An ESPN rep told paidContent that that the company had set up a clear wall between the editoral side and the advertising sides of the Boston site. Unlike other markets, like Chicago and the forthcoming New York and Los Angeles sites, ESPN doesn’t have an existing structure in Boston. It has no radio station, for example, as it does in those other locations, so it turned to KSG to help drive local ads and sponsorships. ESPN will handle national sales for the Boston property. This is also the second time ESPN has looked outside for help on its local sites. The Chicago site has a content syndication agreement with Huffington Post, though ESPN has its own sales team there.
There’s no set time frame on when the next two sites will be up, but New York is most likely to be next sometime at the end of this year, with ESPNLosAngeles coming out during the first half of 2010.
Posted In: Entertainment, Sports, Media & Publishing, Online News, Companies, Disney, ESPN
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