David Scott
Director, News Content @ESPNprDScott
I’m a native New Englander (Peabody, Mass.) but a relative newcomer to this side of the sports media business. After graduating from UMass in the early 1990s I began a journalism career that saw stints at start-ups (like College Sports Magazine), established titles (SI for Kids and Sport Magazine) and just about everything in between from small town newspapers to big time websites (who remembers ESPN Zone?), emerging blogs (sports media criticism at “Scott’s Shots”) and magazines (RIP, FHM USA).
I co-authored a national best-seller, “Bounce Back,” with John Calipari and then served as Coach Calipari’s social media and business manager for his first two seasons at the University of Kentucky. A serendipitous meeting with Josh Krulewitz at the 2011 Dick Vitale Gala resulted in me gaining employ with the Worldwide Leader in July of 2011.
I currently oversee PR for ESPN’s news content and I’m able to use my experience on “the other side” to help give a clearer and more accurate picture of the incredibly deep and expansive journalistic efforts put forth by all the talented people here at ESPN.
Recent Posts
posted by David Scott on March 7, 2013 4:30 PM
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ESPN Radio listeners will be ‘Green’ with envy Friday morning
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg and Seth Greenberg. (ESPN Images)
The traditional “wearing of the green” for St. Patrick’s Day is still 10 days away. But ESPN Radio is going green for Friday’s edition of Mike and Mike in the Morning as regular co-host Mike “Greeny” Greenberg welcomes guest co-host Seth Greenberg as he fills in for Mike Golic.
The “Greenberg and Greenberg” pairing (ESPN Radio, 6-10 a.m. ET with simulcast on ESPN2) promises to be filled with college basketball talk as the regular season enters its final weekend and the former Virginia Tech head coach, Seth, prepares listeners and viewers for the NCAA Tournament.
But hijinks and humor — in addition to scheduled guests John Smoltz (7:30); Roy Williams (7:45); Bill Self (9:15) and Buster Posey (9:30) — should ensue as the same surnamed pals try to out-Greenberg each other.
“I have long felt that the success of the show hinges on the hosts having the same name,” Greeny said. “So, when Mike Ditka, Mike Jordan and Mike Krzyzewski turned us down, this was a natural.”
“I’m just honored to sit down with the little brother I never wanted and talk sports for four hours,” Seth said. continue reading…
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Filed in: Behind The Scenes, ESPN Radio
posted by David Scott on March 4, 2013 4:28 PM
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ESPN by the numbers, March 2013
Digital Center 2 will add nearly 200,000 square feet of space to ESPN’s Bristol, Conn. campus and be the new home of SportsCenter.
When you’ve been delivering sports fans their news, entertainment and game coverage for 33 years, you tend to accumulate a lot of impressive statistics and factoids.
To help translate the size and scope of what ESPN does, Front Row presents:
ESPN By the Numbers, March 2013
Make up. . .
• 8 US cable networks with more than 18,000 hours of live event programming and more than 11,900 of live studio hours
• ESPN is in 98,516,000 homes nationwide and ESPN2 is in 98,477,000
• ESPN Audio presents 9,000 hours of talk/news/events to 24 million listeners a week via 450 affiliates (360 of which are full-time) including owned and operated stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas
• ESPN Digital Media accounted for 29 percent of all sports category usage in January 2013, more than the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 sports properties combined
• ESPN the Magazine delivers more than 14 million readers with the average issue.
Our people. . .
• 7,000 worldwide employees (more than 4,000 based at headquarters in Bristol, Conn.)
• More than 1000 public facing commentators, analysts, hosts and writers
Our Connecticut campus. . .
• 1.35 Million square feet
• 123 Acres (87 in Bristol, Conn. and 36 in Southington, Conn.)
• 16 Buildings
• 27 Satellite dishes
• Additional facilities in Los Angeles, Charlotte and Austin
Digital Center 1
- 136,000 square feet
- 3 studios
- 8 production control rooms
- 22 edit suites
- 10 master control rooms
Digital Center 2 (Opening in 2014)
- 193,000 square feet
- 4 studios (including new home of SportsCenter)
- 6 production control rooms
Programming and ratings in 2012. . .
• In the fourth quarter, ESPN averaged more than 980,000 households on a 24-hour basis, and more than 2.3 M homes in prime time.
• ESPN Networks averaged 1.34M HH overall and 2.84M HH in prime.
• In prime, ESPN was the top-rated cable net overall, and among M18-34, M18-49 and M25-54.
• ESPN had the top 10 most-watched programs on cable, 14 of top 15 and 22 of top 25
• SportsCenter aired its 50,000th program in September
• 113 million different people use ESPN media each week
• The average person spends 6 hours, 57 minutes with ESPN media each week
ESPN Digital and Social Media. . .
In January 2013:
• In total ESPN digital properties attracted 62.6 million unique visitors, logging 4.97 billion minutes of usage
• Users watched 292 million ESPN digital video clips in January
• ESPN television content generated 13 million social comments, making it the “most social” cable network and the second most social network overall in January
• ESPN video content on YouTube generated 30 million views
In 2012:
• ESPN.com continued to lead the Sports Category with an average minute audience of 77,000, 52 percent higher than its closest competitor
• The five ESPN Local sites (New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Dallas) averaged 8.8 million unique visitors per month
• Grantland.com averaged 2.2 million unique visitors and 26.8 million total minutes per month
• WatchESPN distribution (which includes live access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 and ESPN Goal Line/Buzzer Beater) is now available to more than 50 million households nationwide
• ESPN Mobile ranked No. 1 across the mobile Web and apps for total minutes (642 million), unique visitors (13.3 million), and an average minute audience of 14,600
ESPN’s value. . .
• Almost all Americans have heard of the ESPN Brand (98 percent); while a vast majority (93 percent) are familiar with it
• ESPN is the favorite network (broadcast or cable) among men
• In Beta Research Corp’s annual Cable Operator Evaluation Study, operators named ESPN the network with the most average perceived value among all networks measured for the 13th straight year
• ESPN also ranked the most important network in their cable system for the ninth straight year with 95 percent of operators describing ESPN as “very important” for subscriber retention and acquisition
• ESPN2 ranked second in average perceived value among cable operators for the eighth straight year. The network also ranked No. 5 as the most important network to operators among the 46 measured networks, up from No. 9 in 2011
Note: Digital traffic numbers are from comScore.
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Filed in: Behind The Scenes
posted by David Scott on March 4, 2013 9:00 AM
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Tweetback: #MagicMillion; Ryan Kelly propels Duke; #SSAC13
Front Row knows you have better things to do all weekend than check your social media feeds, so we do it for you.
Here, from the ESPN PR universe, are some of the Tweets, posts and other commentary you may have missed.
You can thank us later!
continue reading…
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Filed in: Weekend Tweetback
posted by David Scott on March 1, 2013 9:45 PM
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UPDATED, Sunday 3/3/13: #MagicMillion: ESPN’s Magic Johnson offers $1 million to the winner of next year’s dunk contest
Magic Johnson on Kia NBA Countdown earlier tonight
UPDATE, Sunday 3/3/13 1:25 p.m. ET.
On Sunday’s edition of KIA NBA Countdown on ABC, Magic Johnson expanded upon Friday night’s comments (below) regarding LeBron James and the dunk contest. Additionally, Lisa Salters (through Michael Wilbon) relayed a message from James.