Niche sport blogs

I check out Poynter.org daily - mainly for Romenesko's media page. Today I saw a piece about blogs that cover certain sports in detail - usually sports that are ignored by the mainstream press. The example he gives is local cycling. Sometimes I think this is the future for coverage of women's sports - just look at all the blogs and message boards devoted to women's basketball where fans congregate for news, gossip, etc. These sites fill a hole out there - while the national press may cover or air a WNBA game here or there or a college game - they are usually straight game stories - for the most part, there is a dearth of feature reporting and commentary/opinion writing on the sport. Granted many of these sites rely on mainstream sports reporting for the basic news - they cobble together what's out there and expand it.

There was also another piece on the Poynter site about bloggers getting press credentials - the focus of the piece is the NHL - some teams are welcoming the additional coverage and issuing media passes to bloggers, others are not. As the writer Steve Klein argues, "For a professional sport that often has to go begging for coverage, blogs should be a godsend."