Blog Reviews

Because I Played Sports... (http://becauseiplayedsports.com/)

This blog is comprehensive on a massive scale, so much so I’m sure every article, or event that mentions “woman” and “sport” is posted and picked to pieces on this blog.

The range of sports covered caters for the real sports fanatics, from speed racing to surfing, to hang gliding (is that even a sport?), and features exclusively those participated in by the softer sex. I enjoy the bloggers sassy attitude towards the way sportswomen are represented in the media, and she (I’m assuming) brings solid evidence to her arguments about the sexualisation of female sports stars, and her campaign to have them taken seriously by sports journalists and audiences alike. I do however tire of the bloggers constant reference to the “objectification” of women in sport, and sometimes wish there would be a more optimistic focus on celebrating the achievements of women in sports!

But then again, this kick-ass approach she takes towards women in sports is what makes this blog so compelling!

Juiced Sports Blog (http://juicedsportsblog.com/)

In all honesty, American sports don’t exactly tickle my fancy. In fact, I only just realised gridiron was a sport, and not something you’d buy at Bunnings. However this blog is very cheeky, and has succeeded in the very hard task of engaging me in baseball and American football.

The bloggers (to which I’m going to assume are male) approach their sport with irreverence, and do this by (for example), comparing football teams to mafia run drug circles, and players to superheroes such as Spiderman, and constant comparisons to the presidential elections (“It’s almost as unbelievable to me as one of the two presidential candidates suddenly dropping out of the race...”) They also interact with readers by asking for their opinions and input into the accuracy of the stories. This could serve to create an open forum of communication and discussion, or else could undermine the audience’s faith in their coverage!

As for format, I do find the format busy, and cluttered, and their use of the same font for all the sections makes it dizzying to look at. The articles are also very long and paragraphed after each sentence, which impedes on the flow of the story. It also means you have to keep clicking into links to access the rest of the story; this is also done on the front page where they only list 2-3 news bulletins on one page. This gets laborious after spending some time on the blog.


US Open- Tennis Blog of the New York Times (http://usopen.blogs.nytimes.com/)

I have a strange new obsession with the New York Times. However, this particular blog on the US open is sanitised and just so very beige. The blog here is merely just a compression of exactly what happened in the game- and a couple of uninspiring cliques such as “he hit his way to the top”, which doesn’t live up to the authors final run-down of the competition as “exciting” and “dramatic”. Surely he would have capitalised on this and made the blog a little more enticing?

I do, however, see the value of this straight-forward-run-down as legitimate and comprehensive coverage of the tennis, however I question why they would be writing such a simplistic run down, when true fans- who are most likely the audience for this tennis dedicated blog- would in all likely hood have already seen it.

However I do give the blogger props for the clean and structured format, as well as the plethora of large pictures that accompany each text box. This makes it easy to read, and appeals to the visual aspect of the game.