A Football Blogger's Take

In a day and age where it seems that football has overtaken baseball as the American pastime the age of web 2.0 emerges with it. Now it's not just the Tony Kornheiser's, the John Madden's, and the Chris Berman's who get a voice. Now all of us get to share our takes and opinions to the whole world. Having a voice does not make you correct, though. The opinion that the Internet has given us can give us a good or bad reputation, depending on how we express, back it up, and present them. This is to help the many who need a slight tip to improve your blog or maybe those who are just starting a blog on football and need a crash course. So, go ahead and take a bit of advice on the art of football blogging.

Passion - Love What You Write

If you want people to love what they read, you have to love what you write. People can tell this very simply in how you defend your opinions and how you articulate them. Don't be lackluster about this; this is what really will set out your blog from others. All of this begins with your mission statement. This is the basis of all of your attitudes and what you will provide to your reading community about football, in a written statement. Show great passion in this vital piece and you are on your way to success in the blogging society. Sustaining your mission statement is just a matter of staying true to it. Live and write by it and it's beliefs.

Find a Process That Works For You

A blogger has a system that he uses for each piece of writing. I found that mine is very unique, as is likely for everyone in a slight fashion. The first thing to do is find a topic, first go to a website that you like the best that pertains to sports. Then look at the top stories and just write about whatever story strikes a chord with you. It could be an off or on field story, it makes no matter. I found that I worked best on emotion. As noted above, passion is a great way to write a good blog. With this passion you write what you really feel. Passion alone won't get you a good piece of writing, however. Remember to write what you feel but don't write illogically. If you have a gaping hole in your logic, no one is going to want to read it, which refers to a credibility factor. Make sure to make sense in your writing and definitely read over what you have written when you are finished. After you have finished then you finally add the title. This is the attention catcher so make it short and cute, that works for me. As I found out many times, the perspective of the third person had trouble reading my writings. This brings up another part of finding your process. You have to try and edit your process as I did when I began to ask a third party to read my work before posting. This resulted in better writing and a firmer grasp of how an audience read my writing.

Be a Nerd, but a Funny Nerd

An essential aspect of a successful football blog, or any blog for that matter, is the credibility of yourself. So know your stuff! Sports make it really easy for you to include outside information because of statistics. Get all of your statistics right and double check everything. After all, you are on the Internet so it's not that hard to go to whatever your sports website of choice (i.e. ESPN.com, cbs.sportsline.com, or SI.com, my "bread and butter sites") is and look it up. However, there is a little happy medium to this aspect. You need to ration your stats, don't be a stat freak. Good commentary is vital to the football blogger's triumph on the net. You have to be funny in what you say while keeping in mind the topic at hand all the while throwing a few stats that help prove your point and thus your credibility (Hopefully that sentence doesn't overload you, so go ahead and read it again slower this time). I think this one from my archives might present a suitable example. I think you will find a good combination of hardy, interesting stats mixed with solid commentary. This is a great way to connect with your audience.

This Just in: Being Current and Fresh Does a Blogger Good

I can't stress enough the importance of being up-to-date and current. If you take something that just came to light and do a little piece on it you will find great success. Especially if you hear the talking heads on ESPN.com making the same points you made two hours after you posted. Can you say insta-cred? This can be through a post game analysis very shortly after a game had just been completed, like this example. If you aren't able to get a computer right after some of these explosive stories hit, you can advance your opinion and better back them up with facts. The Mike Gundy blow up is an excellent example of this as I am better equipped to advance the subject. This after two days of shows and articles discussing the topic. But you really hit the jackpot (although I hate to say so based on the subject) when you get a story that hasn't been hit hard yet. In a couple of hours there will be hundreds of stories on the Internet regarding the subject. The Sean Taylor death was just this in that he died that Tuesday morning and come a few hours later I already had a post on my blog regarding it. This before many shows and articles had even come out regarding the tragedy. This leads me into my next topic.

Take a Story and Explore It


See what is not easily seen, and make it interesting. Sometimes to put yourself apart from the thousands of football blogs you need to think outside the box. As you read the Sean Taylor post you might have noticed that I took something from it that not many would see in it. Not only did I write about the obvious affect it will have on his team and the players and coaches that make it up but the league as a whole. The Darryl Kile death was referenced in it as well. This shows a great example of the affect a death has on both a team and the league. Credibility is built off of such references.

Most Important of All

Two more very essential things you must know. 1) To become a better blogger you must write, WRITE, WRITE!!!! A seasoned blogger is naturally going to be a better blogger than one who just started up his first blog. 2) Take pride in what you write and you will become a better blogger. Showing signs of not caring tells your readers that you don't care about them. I hope this helps and your journey to blogger super stardom doesn't stop until you are on top of the blogosphere.