ESPN has a Miami Heat-only section to their Web page. The Heat Index. As of now, ESPN does not have a “Wizard’s Spells” page for D.C.’s basketball team.
With city-specific pages for Boston, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago, ESPN is encroaching on bloggers, newspapers and local TV stations’ turf. It is all about money; Miami is not a great sports (fan) city, so ESPN is only covering the Heat, which with LeBron, Bosh and Wade, will now be the most popular team in the NBA. They have decided people interested in the Heat don’t necessarily care about the Panthers, Marlins or Dolphins.
What does this mean for Washington? Well, if anyone at ESPN gets wind of how popular The Washington Post’s coverage of the Redskins is, isn’t there a distinct possibility of an ESPNDC?
Here is a list of the four-sport cities (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) that do not have ESPN city-specific Web sites: Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Phoenix and the Bay Area. Of those, only Philly, with the nation’s fourth-largest TV martket, would seem more pressing than Washington.
DC Crank Tank 