Fox Sports continues to add to their talent ranks, this time on the digital side. The network has added Mike Foss, who was Managing Editor of the very successful and popular viral hub For The Win at USA Today. Foss made the announcement on his Twitter page that he’d be joining Fox as the new “VP of News Properties” in December.
https://twitter.com/themikefoss/status/668847353135280128?lang=en
https://twitter.com/themikefoss/status/668878866446987264?lang=en
When reached by Awful Announcing earlier today, Fox Sports Senior Vice President of Content for Fox Sports Digital Mark Pesavento (who also recently joined Fox from FTW) had this to say about bringing Foss aboard:
Mike will be joining us as VP of News Properties overseeing all aspects of news creation and programming, and will help us continue building cross-platform properties (like At The Buzzer, Fighter and the Kid, et al). He’s a bright guy with deep contacts and a fantastic track record. At USA TODAY Sports, we entrusted him with our most valuable property, FTW, and he helped build a site around fresh, original content and smart curation.Mike is a dynamic editor with sharp instincts about what makes for compelling content on the social web. He will work with us to develop the properties and personalities that will drive audience growth across platforms — meaning, we’ll be creating new products and we’ll be using existing talent in exciting new ways, too, across media (text, video, podcasts).It’s an exciting role that will help raise the bar for us, and I think he’s the exact right person for it.
There’s no denying For the Win’s massive success ever since it launched a few years ago. It’s been a mega-hub of viral stories largely driven by social media. As of last August, FTW’s traffic was nearing a monthly audience of 10 million, blowing away much of the competition.
Fox trying to channel FTW’s success gives some insight into their future online and digital plans. It continues the work done already in emphasizing digital video content with @TheBuzzer and digitally-focused hires that include Jimmy Traina and Kristen Balboni.
It also means Fox is going to continue to push to get more social content and more younger visitors in the FTW model. Of all the major mainstream sports media portals, Fox seems to be the most focused on drawing in this audience and is establishing a robust plan of action to do so.
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