Observations

First, live blogging a sports game is tough.

For starters, what’s the audience? Is it folks who aren’t watching the game, or those who want more context later? That has a lot to do with how you approach things: Should you dedicate a lot of space to play-by-play or just focus on observations and otherwise? These fundamental questions about audience are at the heart of a controversy over live blogging, which reached its peak during last summer’s NCAA baseball tournament: Do live blogs compromise exclusive broadcast rights?

I’ve done some live blogging of sports events before (two years ago when the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup), and my absolute role model in this practice is ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons.

There is no consensus about the formatting of live blogs in terms of chronology: Should it be reverse chronological, like inverted pyramid, with the most recent items up top? I think so, even though some of the references and jokes get a bit messed up as they build on content mentioned earlier. Also, with sports posts, you have building action under one header that then leads into the header above it. It can get confusing, which is why I try to keep the sections as brief as possible. All these things considered, I still think that reverse chronological is the right way to go because it prevents people from having to scroll all the way to the bottom to read anything or to wonder if something has been updated. When you include your posted times and keep it short, I think that’s the easiest format to read.

As far as tone, I take a page from Simmons’ book, among others. I think live blogs should be light as well as informative. The writer should be able to draw upon a large knowledge base, making references and observations of interest to the subject matter. I tried to do that throughout my post, including player and game context, as well as pop culture references related to commercials, announcers and other news. I think this style makes live blogs readable. People don’t want a straight rundown of the plays. In addition, many sports editors have largely abandoned the play-by-play article in favor of columns for this very reason. People want to hear from someone personally, someone with a perspective on the game. I tried to do that. And my links reflect that.

I linked profiles anytime I mentioned a player, coach or commentator in case the audience was unfamiliar with them. I also included videos to many of the pop culture references I made, as well as the commercials I mentioned. Really, I linked about every person or place I mentioned, to make the reading process as dynamic as possible.

Looking back, I was reasonably happy with how everything turned out. I tried to keep the post as short as possible without forsaking necessary description about the game and environment that made it interesting in the first place. I tried to balance quotes from other folks, game information, as well as my own musings that were intended to add interest. I discussed my link and formatting style, which on the whole I thought were effective. I could have embedded video stills, instead of links, or more photos of players to break up the text, which might have improved the formatting. But on the whole, I was happy with it came out.