Romenesko

Welcome to Chicago Sports

What we're starting ...
We're re-launching the section under a new name: Chicago Sports. With a new name comes some new (and renewed) features ...

Steve Rosenbloom will appear in print five days a week. Page 2 will be known as the Smack, 1) because it does much of the same kind of work as the Talk pages in Main and 2) I couldn't call it Talking Shit. Anchoring the Smack will be the Main Event (more on that below).

We'll promote your appearances on local TV and radio and tell readers where they can follow you on Twitter. From you, I'll need your schedule and your Twitter addresses. If you don't have a Twitter address, now would be a good time to get one.

We'll heavily promote our new Web site, Chicago Breaking Sports. (And no, it's not a coincidence that Chicago Sports and Chicago Breaking Sports seem to have so much in common in their names. It?s an effort to create an overarching experience from the Tribune sports report. We have their teams online first, we have it best in print. We have it all, around the clock.) And we're going to add features we've had in the past (hooks and bullets crowd, this means you) and things we've never had (new Madden comes out? We review it.), among others.

Why we're doing this ...
Much like the Cubune myth, the conventional wisdom among some in Chicago has been that our pals across the way have the better Sports section. We've all heard it. Dan and I sat in meetings where people in our own building parroted that to our faces. Pardon the Hoosier in me rising up, but that's bull shit. You know it. I know it.

We're as aggressive and hard charging as any and as we've ever been. We're only doing more. It's about time the public knows it. That's a big reason why we've added the APSE Top 10 button to our covers. I know, it's not in our DNA to cheerlead for ourselves. But if we don't trumpet our success, who will? A renewed section with a new name resets the counter. And with the added features and increased energy in the section comes some investment from the company. First, we'll have a modest increase in space, seven days a week. That doesn't mean your stories all just got longer. It means we have some room to do more and different things than we can do now. Some stories might grow. But more likely, stories will happen in print that otherwise wouldn't.

Second, we're going to market and promote our new section and our new site. This is a great time to re-energize ourselves and our presence. The S-T is in transition. I wish them luck but this is our moment to get in front and stay there.

Why "Chicago Sports" ...
The connection to the site is obvious. It's a reflection of the SEO world we live in. The two most important words for us are Chicago and Sports. Let's start there every day.

Can I still chase a story outside Cook County?
Yes. Don't think of it as a geographical boundary. I didn't just put up a fence. We're still half the Tribune bureau covering the Olympics (Hi, Phil Hersh). We're still covering the World Series, with a better-than-fair bet each year that we're budgeting to not cover a Chicago team playing in it (Hi, Phil Rogers). We'll still cover Notre Dame football (Hi, Brian). We'll still go to Minneapolis for a Monday Night game when Brett Favre faces the Packers for the first time (Hi, David). And all of the other trips we make (Hi, everybody). The guiding principle is that we're covering sports figures and issues that Chicagoans are talking about. If it's of interest here, it's of interest to us, no matter what state or country the story is happening.

The Main Event ...
Smack (Page 2) is going to do a lot of work for us, much like the opening pages of a magazine. It?s Steve?s new home. It?s where we?ll tell readers where to find you outside the Tribune and our sites. It?s where our revised calendar of local teams will take up residency, off the Scoreboard page (Hi, Lee). The page will be the first inside page you come to in the home delivery and the tab. The page will be anchored by the Main Event. It?s that charticle/alternative story form in the middle where we take a news story, a trend, an odd occurrence, whatever we can make some hay with. Attached examples are ones that we have already published. Other ideas we like ... -Where are they now: John Macchione, William Ligue? -Locker talker: What's in there? -He shoots, he scores: photographers break down how they go the photo -Sports toon: OpEd meet sticks and balls -Who's up, who?s down: Chicago sporting barometer -Player's Ink: Tell us about that tat. We'll get these and more into the rotation. Expect to be called upon, just as you contribute now to the Four Corners. Any ideas you have for the Main Event, speak up.

The cover: Call me crazy, but those section flags don't look the same. Good eye you got there. The smaller canvas of the tab is reality we have to account for. With a longer name, we had to revise the look to make best use of the space. Initial pages were too cluttered and hard to get into visually. You might also notice that the photo changed between those covers. That's another part of working with a smaller chunk of space. Images with a clear focal point and simple backgrounds work best there. We'll edit the headlines, refers to other stories and photo selection with all of these issues in mind. So don't be surprised if the picture on the home-delivery broadsheet is not the same one on the tab back.

The Last Row
This has long been our "second front" where we give a good display to a package that can do it justice. We'll continue down that path. I like the Bold Names. They'll stay. We'll add some things we used to have in The Last Row 1.0: polls, big numbers, quotes, etc. In addition, I'm looking at adding your contributions to Four Corners but cutting it down to a mano-a-mano debate. The prototype you see here is more raw than the covers and Page 2 prototypes. We'll continue to refine it until the launch. And then we'll refine it some more.

When does this launch?
The new section debuts on Monday, October 26. Yes, concurrent with the launch of the new site.