Monday, September 22, 2008

SI on Campus A.K.A. super crazy college sports E-party!

So....I just finished looking at Sports Illustrated on Campus and I came to one conclusion. They created a CD rom that was the exact crazy, sexist, sports oriented male paradise and inserted it in the CD drive and POOF! SI on campus was born.
Besides being completley not interested in sports, I have tried to hold that opinion aside and look at SI from an unbiased point of view. I found that it was put together well and it had plenty of interesting topics about every male sports genre'. It has a "something for everyone" approach that seems to be geared to young males in college or sports die hards. They offer evaluations of teams, comments about their coaches or schools, and even ticket sales for the next big college game. Their approach is also very "shock and awe" with pictures of intense fans and action going on everywhere on the site. They also appeal to the young man's mind with the stereotypical cheerleading pictures because..hey? what guy doesn't like a dumb hot chick? They even have an article featuring Miss October who is a junior Public Relations major at Gainsville who suddenly found herself on the front cover of playboy and felt that it would be a great time to take a "haitus" from her college education to live the Playboy mansion life. Lets just say that it's interesting that this is a CNN affiliate. Kind of makes me giggle...so much for being conservitive.
I would say it was an accurate news source because you do have many columnists on the site that have very well informed articles that they've obviously worked hard to publish their pieces. I believe that they are devoted to their passions and the guys that take the photos of the ditsy cheerleaders are probably pretty devoted too although they completely demean the women they're reporting about...but i bet they don't make as much money as the guys that actually work hard to produce a good, juicy column. Also, the whole exchange between the demeaning of women and women being demeaned doesn't happen unless one of the two parties allows it to (the women! come on girls, you can still be gorgeous and super smart too!)
Overall, I liked SI because they were smart about what appeals to young men. I'm sure the website was created as way to reach the demographic they were having the most trouble reaching and i'm sure it worked. Girls, sports, and tickets to games...sounds like a internet paradise except for the young mens inability to E-Drink at the same time. I'm sure theres ways around that though...like doing it in the real world while you take in the glories of SI on campus.
My Vote; smart website. :)

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