Review: Sports Chronicle

First of all: I like specialized blogs. I like to find a topic on the web that I do not know much about, and then see that someone else is an expert on it, and shares his knowledge with his visitors. For me, this gives the opportunity to learn more, which is one of my goals in live. The Sports Chronicle has the potential to grow into such a place.Written by an author with the pseudonym The Scrapper, this is a blog about American Football, the national league as well as university teams (I think, and I must admit not to know much about American Footbal). The site looks okay, and offers a lot of inside information, but it lacks explanation about the blog and about American Footbal (I, as a complete American Football nitwit, ad to realy surch hard to find out which sport it was about), and I did not succeed in learning more about American Football.Some nice features and well written texts earned the blog some extra Bricks, for a total of 65 Bricks, exactly enough for a Triumphal Arch :-)

Looks and functionality (10 Bricks)
The Sports Chronicle blog looks okay. The Scrapper used quite a lot of good image material to illustrate his American Football postings. However, it could be improved a lot when the blog would design its own logo, and maybe some subtle background design. This could distinguish the site as a proper American Football thing.
Navigation is made fairly easy, with all available topics at the top of the sidebar so they are easy to find. Because The Scraper writes very long posts, I would suggest bringing the number of posts per page down to two or three, which will speed up the load time, and simplify the site navigation. To make clear what the website is actually about, an introduction in the sidebar would be advisable

Content (46 Bricks max)
As said before, the topic is well chosen and the author shows to have a lot of knowledge about American Football. The entries do not only give the news highlights from the American Football world, but also the authors opinions and reflections. However, if the webpage wants to grow more popular, some aspects are not completely optimal.
It would be good when the posts would be accompanied by a short introduction about the topic of that post. I understand (and take into consideration for the Bricks), that most visitors will have a lot more background knowledge on American Football than I have, but still a bit more background information would be nice. Furthermore, A few more easy-access posts on American Football in general could establish Sports Chronicle as an expert on this topic, leading to more links and more visitors.
The content of the posts is nicely consistent, with some odd but nice posts in between, for example the comparison between American Football and the series ‘24’.
Updates occur reasonably frequent, but the update rate could be better. The length of the posts, however, makes up for this.

Extras (8 Bricks)
Sports Chronicle offers some nice features in its side bar, such as a screen with the batting average of a number of American Football players, a screen with the standing of the top 5 teams for East, Central and West (I am sure this division has great significance for fans, although not to me :-). Furthermore, a window is supplied in which the recent game outcomes are displayed in real time.
When it comes to interaction, the website offers a few polls to its visitors, as well as the normal comment options.

The American Football blog Sports Chronicle

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