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Can Youth Sports Coverage Pay Off Online?
Avoiding Criticism
Former Baltimore Sun reporter Lem Satterfield interviews a player after a high school football championship game for his new employer, DigitalSports.
(By Zachary A. Goldfarb -- The Washington Post)
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DigitalSports was one of several high school sports companies floundering in 2005 when Ed Kelley joined.
A onetime football player and coach, he saw a chance to provide more than statistics.
For 18 months, he traveled around the country talking to coaches, athletic directors and others involved in sports. He concluded DigitalSports should leave articles about the hyper-competitive world of recruiting and controversies to other outlets.
"Saying anything negative about anybody is a termination event," he said. "We're trying to put a protective umbrella over youth sports."
DigitalSports has received venture capital funding from, among others, Bethesda's Novak Biddle, which would describe the investment only as in the middle seven figures. Top executives from Advertising.com also joined the company.
New media or old media, Satterfield, the former Sun reporter, said he feels the emotion of the kids on the field just the same.
At the football championship that Friday night, long after the stadium lights had been shut down and the postgame quiet had settled in, Satterfield was clicking away on his laptop.
A few feet away, his friend Sun reporter Pat O'Malley, whose colleagues call him the "pope" of high school sportswriters, was rushing to meet deadline. "Not enough time," O'Malley said as he sent in the 391-word piece, destined for Page C9.
Satterfield felt no such consternation. He first posted a summary story. "People will be logging on," he said. But then past midnight he polished it, writing a more dramatic opening and longer narrative, topping it off at more than 1,000 words.
