January 23, 2014 by Charlie Eisenhood in Livewire, Video with 3 comments
I just returned back from a week in the Yucatan ready to tear into the college season. I realized that we haven’t exactly laid out a road map of 2014 in terms of coverage and plans. We’re doubling down on news and reporting, while also adding entirely new elements to our writing. Read on to hear more.
In-Depth Reporting
If anything is changing on our reporting front, it’s that we will have more. We have hired a great new class of reporters and will be expanding our coverage across all levels. Our college coverage will be thorough and detailed, we will be starting to get into youth coverage, and we will have more resources in our business reporting.
Analysis: Now A Focus
In the last year and a half, analysis has taken a bit of a back seat to reporting. That is changing. We are planning to do more Grantland-style writing than ever: video breakdowns (like this of UNC), strategy discussion, features on players and teams, and more. We have a dedicated analytical staff now.
Columnists & Voices
We’ve already added some great new voices to the site, from Tiina Booth to Sion “Brummie” Scone. We will focus more this year on highlighting great opinion writing, something we lacked in the first year of the site’s existence. We want to make Ultiworld a forum for discussion as well as a consistent news portal.
Live Video: Bigger & Better — & Free
Yes, you read that right. Ultiworld will be widely opening the access to premium live game footage across a spectrum of top tournaments. We will be the primary video producers of the Stanford Invite, Easterns, the Northwest Challenge, and (potentially) Centex, among numerous other high-level tournaments. Livestreams are going to be 100% free in 2014. We hope to bring you some great pro league, youth, and club coverage as well. We are working on those fronts right now.
Some background: we were very pleased with the response to our free stream from the 2013 Club Championships (Denver Johnny Bravo v. Atlanta Chain Lightning). A huge number of fans tuned in to watch live — and we think advertisers will be eager to put their brands in front of our growing live video audience.
With this will also come a major investment in our production setup. We will now have graphics, scoreboards, and replay on our major streams. This will be premium HD live video production with the best commentary teams in ultimate — all for free.
Archived video will still be paywalled — but with an increasingly simplified payment/download system.
New Website
We are in the process of a major site redesign that should streamline the user experience and make Ultiworld a one-stop site for ultimate news, reporting, analysis, and opinion.
The exact timeline is not crystallized, but we hope to have the new site live in the middle of the college season.
If you have features you think we are missing or any ideas about how to make the site better, please email Technology Director Orion Burt at [email protected].
Fitness & Nutrition
Our new nutrition columnist Kate Schlag has already been hard at work; her latest is about the reliance on and prevalence of ibuprofen in ultimate.
Her great work will continue, but bigger things are in the works. Sometime in mid-2014, prepare for the launch of a dedicated strength and conditioning area of the website. More details to come in a few months.
