When The Sporting Tribune was born on September 12, 2022, I was so happy and relieved when the website finally went live. An idea that was two years in the making was finally a real thing.
As I soaked in the way the homepage looked and the way the top stories read, I prepared to head out for our launch party when a longtime friend called me. “Congratulations,” he said. “Now the real work starts. What are you leading the site with tomorrow morning?”
I had no idea. I was so focused on simply getting the website off the ground, I hadn’t spent much time worrying about the fact that all the hard work it took to launch it was now a never-ending daily grind.
My friend laughed as he could hear my voice crack and my mood change. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll figure it out. You got it off the ground. Now you have to build the plane as you fly it.”
I haven’t exactly figured it out but I do love the process of building this plane while it’s in the air.
I love everything about the team we are building here at The Sporting Tribune. The early seeds of this company were planted with the dream of having a team like this one day. During the early days of the pandemic, as we all contemplated what life would be like when things returned to our “new normal,” I started a Substack and a podcast. I updated both every day but something was missing. I missed being a part of a team. I missed bouncing ideas off colleagues. I missed being in a group chat with co-workers. Shoot, I even missed getting Slack alerts.
Slowly but surely, we have built something special with the team we have at The Sporting Tribune, right down to those annoying Slack alerts when breaking news happens in the middle of the night.
As proud as I have been of everything we have done so far, as we inched towards The Sporting Tribune’s two-year anniversary next month, I knew something had to change. The site we launched two years ago was beautiful but it wasn’t the kind of platform that would help us grow and build the kind of community I had hoped to cultivate when we first started.
That website was built with desktop users in mind and readers consuming longform stories. The focus is now on mobile and connecting with fans anytime and anywhere. Our redesigned site is not only built with mobile users in mind but next month we will be launching an app to serve fans on the go.
As we looked at companies who could help us achieve our goals, we found a perfect fit in BoomPress, a content management system (CMS) provider, who had a track record of success in helping build and monetize local sports websites.
Here are some of the highlights of The Sporting Tribune 2.0:
- 24/7 Team Feeds: All 22 professional and collegiate teams we cover throughout Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii not only have a dedicated team page but a 24/7 team feed. What is that? It’s a feed of all the latest news and information about your favorite teams. It could be as small as a one-sentence update on an injury or as big as a feature story on your favorite player. It could a podcast previewing the next game or a video of the coach’s post-game press conference. The goal is to be the one-stop shop for all the latest news and information on your favorite teams. Each team feed will be managed by three staff writers assigned to cover that team. We will be at every home game and practice and try to travel as often as possible.
- Live Gameday Coverage: Every morning when you wake up, you’ll see a schedule of games the teams in our region are involved in as well as a link to a live file for that game. That live file will give you all the pertinent details about the game but it will also serve as an all-day update, from pregame availability to in-game commentary to post-game availability and will be topped with a recap afterwards. We want to be your eyes and ears at the games but the hope is to get as many fans involved in the in-game coverage and commentary as possible. Speaking of which …
- The Forum Club: If you’re old enough to get this reference, your first drink is on me if we ever cross paths at the legendary Inglewood arena. We are rolling out a 24/7 commenting forum on all team feeds and live files that is called “The Forum Club.” It’s free to join and you’ll be connected to not only our journalists but a community of passionate fans on every team page.
In addition to the redesign and new features, we are also introducing a local sports photography wire service, "The Sporting Tribune Images," and “The Sporting Tribune Podcast Network,” which will cover professional and collegiate sports teams in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii. Both will be prominently featured when we roll out the mobile app next month.
As great as the new website looks and as excited as I am about the launch of the app, wire service and podcast network next month, it still comes down to the people. At the end of the day, none of what we hope to accomplish is possible without the team we have put together.
This dream became a reality two years ago when I partnered with my longtime friend and data scientist Chris Mattmann, who was recently named the Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence Officer at UCLA after a storied 24-year career at NASA JPL where he was the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer. He will continue helping us grow as The Sporting Tribune’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer as we seek to reach and serve sports fans in new and innovative ways. Our executive team also recently added the invaluable experience of three newsroom leaders in Bill Bradley, Jon Scher and Josh Cooper, who will serve as senior editors and advisers.
Bill was previously the sports editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city went from no major professional sports teams to three teams in the NFL, NHL and WNBA in the span of just three years. He was also a Coordinating Producer at NFL Media and served as the Sports Editor at the Sacramento Bee and The Tennessean. Jon was previously a managing editor at The Athletic and a deputy editor at ESPN while Josh was a content strategist at The Athletic and launched the expansion of The Athletic in Los Angeles.
As I learned when we first launched the site nearly two years ago, this will never be a finished product. It will constantly change as we look to improve the way we cover a region I call home and care deeply about. We believe we’re heading in the right direction but I want to hear from you. I have always viewed this site as belonging to the fans and to the community. If you have an idea for how we can improve, a suggestion for what we can do differently or want to inquire about being a part of the team, reach out to me. My email is arash.markazi@thesportingtribune.com and I promise I will respond to you. Again, this site isn’t possible without the people and the community we are building.
I don’t know what this site will look like two years from now but the one thing I have discovered through this company’s first two years is there’s nothing I would rather be doing than building this plane up in the air with this team.