Review Paper over CBS Sports and ESPN

The two websites I decided to use for my compare and contrast essay were CBS Sports and ESPN. I chose these two for multiple reasons. Both of these websites have amazing designs. There pictures/videos, their font and there formatting are unbelievable. Another big reason why I chose these websites is because of the great content both of them offer you. If you are a sports fan, and it doesn’t matter what sport it is, these two websites will give you everything you need to know about your favorite team. While both ESPN and CBS Sports websites successfully attract all the sports fans around the world with their content and especially design, ESPN’s more professional design and ease of navigation surpassed the more difficult to use and confusing audio pop-ups of CBS’s sports site.
Some basic background I found on the ESPN website is that ESPN Inc. owns the website, with the Walt Disney Company having an 80% share, along with Hearst Corporation having the other 20%.
The famous ESPN TV station opened on September 7, 1979 with its famous slogan, “The Worldwide Leader in Sports”, invented on the same day. The first broadcast was “Sports Center” with its famous musical background “Da-Da-Da.. Da-Da-Da”.
Their headquarters are in Bristol, Connecticut. The web site launched in July 1993 as the first major on line site for all sports fans. In May 2002 the site began offering a Broadband platform for high-speed connections. If you love sports and you have a favorite team in a specific sport, ESPN.com can provide you anything you want.
I also found some great background on the CBS Sports website. Michael Levy is the owner of the site, along with David Beeston being the president of CBS Sports. This website started life as Sports Line USA in February 1994, becoming known as CBS Sports Line after been acquired by CBS. It changed to its current name, CBS Sports.com, in August of 2007.
CBS headquarters are just a little south of ESPN’s; they are located in New York City. The biggest difference that I am going to talk about in regards to the two websites is ESPN covers all the major sports around the world, such as; baseball, basketball, football etc. while on the other hand, CBS Sports likes to cover mainly college basketball and football, but will cover the other sports sparingly.
ESPN’s website has an absolute amazing design, usability and content. ESPN’s design, in my opinion, is as good as any website can be. Their pictures and videos really appeal to sport fans. If you would like to watch highlights of the game you missed the other night, ESPN has it for you. If you would like to see screenshot pictures of the game you missed last night, ESPN has it covered for you. My main disappointment with their website is that every video you click on will have a video advert before the piece will run. It doesn’t matter what ESPN video you click on all of them have ads.
Their color scheme might be a little old fashioned to some younger viewers out there but to me personally the red and white color scheme fits perfectly. Personally, one of the amazing things that I like about ESPN.com is the usability of the website; it’s so easy to navigate through. Every time you look around on the ESPN account and you want to find more information about a specific topic you are interested in, it’s literally just a couple of clicks away.
CBS Sports is very similar to ESPN when it comes to their design, usability and content. There pictures/videos are similar to ESPN in lots of ways; it also has an advert before every video runs. It is different in one significant way though; ESPN has more highlights of the games from the previous evening while on CBS Sports, there is more time for the analysts talking about last night’s games. They will give their own opinions on what they saw and also tell you what they expect for future games.
       The CBS color scheme is a little boring and dull wit, instead of Red and White for ESPN; CBS Sports has Blue, Black and White. In my opinion this is more prominent than the ESPN website color scheme. CBS Sports also has amazing usability across the website. In my opinion though there navigation throughout the website requires a little bit more work on the person looking on their website than with ESPN. CBS Sports makes you open up more pages on your computer to look into stories. Some viewers might find this confusing and a little bit unnecessary.
ESPN’s website is unbelievably fast when it comes to clicking on new stories and/or headlines. With ESPN’s website you can easily be looking at one video, then decide to click on a story on the same page and ESPN will immediately take you to that story in under 2 seconds. ESPN also has a great app for smart ‘phones. The app can literally do anything the actual website can do, with the same level of quality. The videos are available for HD just like the website and in my personal opinion; the app is a better option than the website because people aren’t around a computer 24/7 like they are around their ‘phones. The app is just a perfect thing to have for your ‘phone.
CBS Sports is like ESPN when it comes to their speed quality. Like I said earlier though, you have to have more pages open to find what you want on CBS Sports; so of course, it will take a little bit longer. CBS Sports is also like ESPN when it comes to providing an app; they have one available for smartphones. My opinion though, is that their app isn’t as strong as ESPN’s. To me, their website gives you more flexibility on what you can look up than their app does.
To conclude my review paper, I would like to say that both websites are absolutely amazing. If I really had to choose one that I would go on more often or even have a chance to work for, I would choose the ESPN website. ESPN has just a little bit more design in there website along with better usability, so you can navigate throughout their website more swiftly. It is also has an amazing app for smartphone users. Similarly, I would also like to conclude that the CBS Sports website is very close in quality and usability. CBS, in my opinion, actually have a better color scheme than the ESPN account, but I just feel like the ESPN account gives you a better way to get to the stats, videos, and information you need to find out about your favorite sport teams, all around the world.