Communication: In order to best understand  your message, it's imperative to understand the needs of the audience.  In sports media, television (SportsCenter, NFL Live, NHL Network, etc)  is the preferred medium for consumers to stay up to date on their favorite sports and teams.  So, the need to employ multimedia on your website is imperative.

Interaction: What role does social media play in online sports media?  In a word, "everything".  Communities of like-minded fans abound in places like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social networking mechanisms.  Are you properly interacting with your fans?

Collaboration: Do you have multiple communication lines between your staff?  Is the telephone and email the only method of communication that you use?

Case Study: Hurricanes Insider

Hurricanes Insider is unique in that it isn't owned or promoted by a team.  It's a fan site, dedicated to bringing news, blogs and video.

Challenge: Compete in a flooded market with other related fan sites, keep content professional and continually updated, and further promote the Carolina Hurricanes NHL franchise in the Raleigh, NC area.

Strategy Implementation: In order to keep the site fresh the plan was to embrace the competitor's content using the Prolitical product Digger which in effect, neutralized competition while creating a one-stop shop for Hurricanes news and blogs.  

A team of writers with a professional flare were tasked to give the site it's own original content.  The 'insider' concept was to be the central focus of each piece.  Obvious insights were already being pulled in, so adding another dimension of uniqueness in it's content was essential.

Result: Hurricanes Insider can be safely dubbed the 'Center of the Hurricanes Universe', giving no reason for a fan of the team to seek satisfaction from any other source.  In it's rise to prominence, H/I picked up a professional photographer, started the Caniac Nation Network webring and has been featured on radio and in print several times.