SportsManias Aims to Be a One-Stop Shop for Your Team’s News

by
November 5, 2014

Being a fan of a team in the digital age can be daunting. Not terribly long ago, anything worth printing about a team came through in the local sports section in the paper. Now, in the 24-hour news cycle, there is a constant stream of information from traditional news sources, Twitter, team pages, and the big news organizations. For those without the luxury (or with the luxury, depending on how you look at it) of not having constant access to Twitter feeds and RSS readers, it becomes easy to fall behind. If you follow multiple teams throughout multiple sports, staying on top of everything can seem impossible. The site SportsManias is hoping to alleviate some of that stress, with the help of their curated feeds.

The idea behind SportsManias is a simple yet novel one. You create an account, pick your favorite teams, and the site scours the Internet for everything from rumor tidbits to big-time breaking news. The site splits your feed into four sections; articles, tweets, video, and rumors. It’s a fairly intuitive setup, and the sections are explanatory. The articles section deals with published news from many sources, the tweets and rumors section is curated based on the selected teams, and the videos are there to satisfy your lizard brain with highlights.

SportsMania takes all the effort and guesswork out of checking for your sports news. Gone are the days where you have to open 25 tabs in your browser to check MLB.com, NHL.com. mylocalpaper.com, etc. to get what you need. SportsManias does the grunt work for you, and relays it back in an easy-to-consume scrollable feed.

And to help with the curation and media partnerships needed for such and endeavor, SportsManias made a recent acquisition. They recently brought Tim Stephens aboard as their VP of Strategic Partnerships. Stephens is a former Deputy Managing Editor at CBSSports.com and a former president of the Associated Press Sports Editors. Stephens will use his pedigree within the sports-writing world to create new and strengthen existing partnerships with content creators to ensure that SportsManias is bringing the fans all the news they require. Per Stephens in a press release:

“SportsManias connects the great work done by professional journalists with the hard-core fans who want it delivered to today’s front porch – their smart phone, tablet or desktop – in one location, when they want it, how they want it and where they want it. It is a win-win for the journalist, the news organization and the audience. The goal is to become the digital gateway to newspapers, delivering their localized team news to the avid sports fan.”

SportsManias takes a positive-turned-negative back into a positive. It’s great that we have so many sources at our disposal for the which to follow our teams. However, that can come at a price of time and effort for the fan. Through careful curation, a streamlined presentation, and corresponding app offerings on both iOS and Android, SportsManias strives to help the fan stay well-informed. We as fans have an embarrassment of riches like we’ve never seen. SportsManias is looking to make it even better.

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David G. Temple is the Managing Editor of TechGraphs and a contributor to FanGraphs, NotGraphs and The Hardball Times. He hosts the award-eligible podcast Stealing Home. Dayn Perry once called him a "Bible Made of Lasers." Follow him on Twitter @davidgtemple.

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