Houston's Top 10 Most Fan Friendly Sports Sites (Clutchfans #1)

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http://www.examiner.com/x-1519-Hous...orts-sites-blogs-etc-Rockets-sites-score-high

Houston's top 10 most fan friendly sports sites, blogs, etc; Rockets-related sites score high
June 29, 4:08 PM · Fred Faour - Houston Sports Examiner

Last year, we stirred the pot quite a bit with our best Houston blogs list. There were many critics, much wailing and gnashing of teeth. So this year, we decided to try something different and combine
everything into one.

So welcome to Houston's best Fan-friendly Web sites.

This is an all-inclusive group. Fan sites, forums, blogs, online columns, you name it.
The rules were simple: 1) It had to be Houston-team or sports based (no UT or A&M sites were included). 2) Examiners (including me) were excluded in the interest of fairness.

The question for each panelist was simple: Where are your favorite places to go to get Houston sports information? It can be one team or a collective. It can be one writer or several.

Last year, for instance, we took each Chron.com blog as a separate entity. This year, the panel voted on Chron.com as one collective group. Some commenters last year pointed out quite fairly that the
Chronicle blogs weren't really blogs but traditional news providers.

While I don't necessarily agree, I do believe it is a fair criticism.


Regardless, we lumped them together, and the result was a suprise (at least to me).

Disclaimer: I did not vote, but collected votes from several local colleagues, both at our radio station and a couple others, plus some more traditional journalists. No one was allowed to vote on any of
their own entities.

I do drop a few of my own thoughts in where appropriate.

As with any list, this is purely subjective. My list might look a lot different. But I went for an intelligent, diverse group of voters who hopefully provide a fair cross-section of what the fans want.

The standards? Quality of information, frequency of updating, entertainment value, ease of site navigation, quality of design.

And No. 1: Is it fan-friendly?

I am sure there are glaring omissions. Feel free to rip me for them.


There are a couple I mention at the end that I would have liked to have seen on the list. But this is how our panel did it, and I truly believe they did an excellent job.

Thanks to all the panel members who helped; you are very much appreciated. I thought this would be a much more unbiased list than "here are Fred's favorites." There are too many people I personally
like doing these pages for me to be completely unbiased, so I let other people I trust do it.

With that in mind, here they are:

1) Clutchfans. A near-consensus No. 1. Clutchfans has become the gold standard for a fan site. It's collection of stories, forums and commentary that has taken it well beyond a standard fan site. The
Rockets have a huge following, and Clutchfans is the perfect place to feed their appetite.

2) Crawfishboxes. It's a testament to this site that it scored so high considering how bad the Astros have been in recent years. The coverage of the MLB draft was as solid as you will see anywhere. They take a
more cerebral approach to baseball, and it works. A talented group of writers who keep it interesting no matter how bad things get at Minute Maid.

3) Chron.com/sports/bleacherreport. If we had split this up individually, The Z
Report and King Solomon's Mind would have made top five. Every panelist mentioned Jerome Solomon. The partnership with bleacher report both helps and hurts. Bleacher report adds some fresh updated content -- something sorely missing from the main Chron site -- but there is now so much going on it is difficult to navigate.

Regardless, The Z Report and King Solomon's Mind are must-reads. John McClain's blog remains a terrific read as well.

SportsJustice, last year's winner, is still among the more popular blogs, as is Stephanie Stradley's Texans blog, which scored very high individually last year.

I would have this one No. 1 just for Jerome and the Z Report, but I admit to some bias since I worked there for so long. Which, of course, is why we used a panel.

4) The Dreamshake. Another very strong Rockets fan blog that is updated constantly and has very strong forums. It is interesting that the Rockets have spawned so many strong sites. A massive oversight by
last year's panel to leave that one out. It didn't happen this time.

5) Battle Red Blog. This Texans fan site garnered votes from almost everyone. It is updated frequently and is very popular among Texans fans. Another site that does a nice job of combining forums and news.
It missed on our blog list last year, because you could aruge that it is more forum than blog, but with the new standards this year, it was a clear top five with the voters.

6) Jason Friedman/Rockets.com. Friedman's blog is sometimes limited by what he can't say. As an employee of the team, he can only report what the league will allow. Despite that, he gives honest, insightful commentary and stories. The site itself is one of the best team sites anywhere. Friedman sets is apart from the others and is simply one of the best in the city at what he does.

7) Coogfans.com. Primarily Forum oriented, this is a must-read for anyone even slightly interested in UH athletics. The Scout.com tie-in means some of the better content is for sale, but the free content is
enough to make the list. The forums are some of the best moderated in the city. Another I would have had higher up, but then my UH is probably showing.

8) Houstonmediawatch. An edgy, up and coming blog that hits on the local sports media but also provides solid commentary on a variety of subjects. Lamont Mann, Mike Ganis and Craig Shelton lead a diverse and entertaining group. I really like the direction and longterm potential.

This is another I had higher than the panel.

9) Houston Press. This site has come a long way, using a variety of talented contributors hitting many different sports topics. (Our personal favorite is Sean Pendergast, one of the most talented and funny dudes in the city). However, there is a lot to like here beyond Sean. Another I had higher up.

10) Sbnation/Houston sports. This one picked up a lot of votes for a relatively new enterprise. Affiliated with three of our top 10 sites, they also have Houston news and a nice staff of writers. Worth keeping an eye on this one.

Some personal favorites that did not quite make it: Houstontexans.com. Give Nick Scurlock a lot of credit for his reporting skills on this site. The Texans, like the Rockets, are limited by what they can post and say since the contributors are team employees. But within those confines they do an awesome job. I thought this one deserved to be in.

Same goes for Astros.com, but the general suckage of the Astros probably contributed, and most of the baseball voters clearly went with crawfishboxes. I also think most fans prefer the independent sites to team sites, although I think Brian McTaggart is terrific).