Monday, January 25, 2010

NFL.com The Only Place For Official American Football News

For American football, or Gridiron, fans, there can only be one place for the latest news on the sport and their favourite teams - NFL.com. The major American sports are known to have their coverage tightly controlled and ruled with an iron fist by their official authority bodies, so it is little wonder that NFL.com provides every possible angle that American football fans crave for - news, rumours, gossip, videos, photos and more. There are many other independent sports news sites that cover the sport on less (or more depending on how one looks at it) biased angles, but the official word on every area and minute detail can be found on this main site alone, easily one of the best American football sites.

One of the best features of the NFL.com site is the live score coverage that it provides to millions of fans not just in the United States but also around the world. Some might not be able to get live television coverage of the weekly games each season, but using the live score and commentary features provided on the site, they can enjoy extensive updates on the latest happenings of each game. The advanced technology used also means that even the various moves, passes, fouls, each down and tackle can be detailed well to site readers and visitors.

For fans who need to watch the actual videos there are also plenty of highlight reels and news reports provided on the site after each game. These updates are very fast and can only be achieved due to the control the NFL has over its sport. It truly allows the NFL.com site to be a virtual one stop portal for everything an American football fan would want and need.

If you need to catch up on the latest happenings of your favourite NFL team, this site is also the main portal for that. There are various ways to reach a specific NFL team's own site from the various team logos that are plastered at the top of the header menu. This also serves as a central portal for products and merchandise that fans will want to get their hands on for the team they support. Need the latest Saints football jersey? No problem, find the team logo at the top, click on it and you will be transported to their own site with all the stuff a Saints fan would want.

When a central body so tightly regulates and controls the sport, there can be fears that fans on the street would be ostracised. NFL.com avoids that completely by opening their site to fans in various community enabling features, like comments, blogs, readers polls and many more. This keeps the governing body communicating with the fans and also obtain opinions and suggestions that can not only help to improve the organisation itself, but the sport as a whole. This alone would be enough to ensure it continues to be one of the top sports sites like some of the best football sites that we have reviewed.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Goal.com Cutting Edge Football News

When it comes to top football sites that encompasses both cutting edge news and a leading brand, there are very few that come close to what Goal.com has managed to deliver consistently and progressively well over the year. There are millions of sites that provide good coverage of the latest soccer news and rumours, but Goal.com has never failed to satisfy and provides tons of worldwide exposure to various football leagues around the world and all their latest happenings.

While the site design of Goal.com is still rather old fashion and laid back, what strikes a visitor most each visit is the sheer amount of football news reels and tidbits that adorns each and every page of the site. There is a rotating photo slide show that accompanies the top latest news articles on the left column while the centre column has all the breaking news coverage. Goal.com ensures freshness of information on each visit as there is an astounding sluice of the latest gossip from every angle of the sport each time. There are also plenty of videos and photos that will thrill the biggest foootball fan.

While many other sites focus on specific or the most popular football leagues around the world, Goal.com does not show any clear bias. From Europe to North America, Asia to Africa, every league in the world is provided its widest reporting possible. While the most popular leagues of course dominates their headlines since the most amount of information and details emerge from them like the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga, Asian and African football also get their fair share of the spotlight.

Goal.com also supports this endeavour with a huge backend staff of reporters and journalists that cover an exhaustive number of soccer leagues. Rarely would you see an English soccer news site cover the latest matches, news and rumours on the K League or various African competitions, for example. This is highly impressive and certainly commendable.

For data and stats junkies, Goal.com also provides in-depth databases of the leagues around the world. While some of them can be understandably lacking in updates due to availability of data, the most important leagues are definitely well researched and updated regularly.

Can you be an active participant and reader of the site? It appears you can because not only are comments widely welcomed on each article, there are also regular opinion polls, forums, communities to build and widgets that other fans can use to interact with the site and one another.

It is hard to say if Goal.com is the best soccer news site on the Internet, but it definitely comes close. It is right up there with many of the best and widely read sites around the world and one which comes highly recommended.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Soccernet News

While ESPN is a sports network that dominates pretty much every arena, it is making a big name for itself in terms of soccer or football news and being one of the top sports sites in the world. Football is the more recognised term for the sport all over the world except for in the United States where it is more commonly used to identify with their domestic gridiron kind. But with respect to Soccernet.com, it is synonymous with news and rumours of any kind concerning the round ball. When it first debuted, Soccernet had to contend with the more established British news media and also other North American soccer portals like Goal.com to expand their reach wider. We felt initially that they had too much of an American touch to the way they reported football news, while also using (and still do) terms related to the sport that are more common, and suited, for American consumption. That has improved slightly over the years and now they have a lot of modern features that will satisfy most football or soccer fans.

Apart from providing several snippets everyday on the latest sensationalistic football gossip from the various British newspapers and tabloids, Soccernet has also roped in many well respected columnists from the various important European football scenes. Not only do they include those from the ever popular Barclays English Premier League like Harry Harris and Richard Jolly, they also provide high quality weekly columns reporting on German football, Spanish football and others from the likes of Phil Ball (a personal favourite). They also get special guest columnists or interviews with stars like Alan Shearer, Ossie Ardiles and many more who are all worldwide football stars.

Not content with traditional Web media, Soccernet.com has also embraced new media in several ways. While they were not as fast with it, they now have a twice weekly podcast on the site with correspondents Jon Harris-Bass and Dan Mason. Running through the week's latest news and gossip around the soccer sphere, the ESPNSoccernet Podcast also provides interesting interviews with their worldwide columnists and football stars. There is also a Fantasy Podcast to discuss the site's Fantasy Football League which is rather popular although not our cup of tea.

For some of the latest and important football and soccer news, Soccernet.com is certainly a leading brand in the industry. They are regularly updated and provide personal and professional opinions that can reveal insight not easily available elsewhere to fans of the sport.