With newspapers cutting back on original content and many blogs tending to give opinion as opposed to breaking news, the niche news sites, ones whic.aggregate content, link to key sites and provide original news coverage, especially for second tier sports, are becoming more and more impactful, and shoul.really be looked upon more by teams, brands and athletes as the place to communicate with the strong fan base as well as with the casual fan. More importantly, these sites are where many members of the media new to the sport, the team or the brand will go on first look to get information and background, so not working with the sites, or treating them as insignificant while chasing the mainstream, can proove to be a mistake. Examples of some of these solid sites are WCSN for Olympic sports, Five Ounces of Pain for Mixed Martial Arts, and in soccer, one to check out is Big Apple Soccer.?Even with sites like ESPN and Yahoo vastly increasing their second tier sports coverage, the ability for the cumulative sites to draw eyeballs and ge.brands, athletes and teams great exposure, and in tur.push that news in macro to bigger sites, is growing in importance. Perhaps just as important is the cultivation of young journalists through the sites. Many times because the writers and videographers on these sites have both a passion and an expertise in the are.that mainstream sites do not, the writing is more detailed, much cleaner and more interesting for those looking to get more indepth coverage. So when building the media plan, look for the big hit, but dont forget the niche sites.Darren Rovell has a good activation piece on State Farm's new sponsorship of the All-Star Home Run Derby, including a great twis.on fan involvement…the Wall Street Journal has a must read q and a with the NBA's Adam Silver, a guy who rarely gets the credit for all he has done to impart David Stern's vision to the masses…the Raleigh News and Observer has th.details of Lenovo's activation push and timing heading towards the Olympics, and Media Post has yet another piece on mainstream sponsors looking toward the gaming world to activate, this time with HP and Major League Gaming…..
