The Sports Blog Network is putting out the calls for writers to come join our ranks, covering their favourite teams and keep the masses on the internet up to date with what is happening with them straight from the source. But before you scroll to the very bottom and click “Apply”, you should read what we’re after with this position.

This is what we are expecting from our writers:

• Minimum of three posts per week, being at least six hundred words in lenght. They should be largely about the team that you have chosen to cover, with a secondary emphasis on the sport/league they are in. We’ll need you to stay abreast with the latest happenings and make sure that your readers are informed about them.
• More then regurgitating facts – We’re looking for folks that offer more then what fans could get just scanning box scores and game results. Analysis that only come about from someone that follows their team, and can fill in the blanks that fans wouldn’t normally find by reading the stat sheet or browsing ESPN/TSN.
• Intelligently-written, self-proofread articles. The editorial team will read over your work, but we will expect nothing more heinous than the occasional grammatical error. Know which “your,” “there,” and “too” to use. Know how to spell names correctly and look stuff up if you don’t know it.
• Having a writing style that fits with the general theme of the site. Here are some examples: First,Second,Third,Fourth
• Basic understanding (at least) of posting to WordPress blogs.
• Be in for the long haul – The Sports Blog Network is going to be around for the long haul, and we’re looking for writers that are as well. We realize that life throws knuckleballs at everyone from time to time, but if you can’t dedicate about two hours or so at lest three times a week consistently, this is probably not the gig for you.

This is what you need to be considered:

1. Examples of your writing will be required. Submissions will be ranked as follows:

• Writings from a currently active blog – If you have current writings published on either your own blog or on another blog online, the blog must be currently active, with a consistent history of at least three months of writings published by you.
• Newspaper submissions – If you have been writing for an online or paperbased newspaper, you also must have a history of at least three months of consistent published work. Examples must be accessible online and a contact phone number for the editor provided if the paper is still active.
• Submitted writings – If you dont’ have anything published either in print or online, we would need three articles that follow the format that we specify in this posting to be submitted. These can be in either in MS Word, OpenOffice, or PDF. They should be applicable to the team that you are submitting an application to write for.

For published works, they do not have to be about sports, but preference will be given for those that are.

2. Living in the general area of the team you’re applying for. In order to give our readers the most authentic news, we’d prefer to have our writers to be living in the general area of the team they apply for, to help facilitate them being able to see games easier, and get a general feel from ground zero of their teams universe. We’re not asking potential writers to be living right beside the stadium, but being in the general area would help.

3. Have, or are currently on possessing a journalism degree. As this position is really what a journalism degree would lead you too profession wise, it wouldn’t hurt.

Made it this far? Super! So how can you make your application stand out? Here’s some tips.

• Professionalism – We’re looking for writers that can deliver their message coherently, and in proper English. Writeups written in l33tsp3@k, tons of profanity, lots of OMGWTFBBQ’s and other terms that would earn a big F on a high school English paper are pretty much the opposite of what we’re after.
• Objectivity – We realize that as a fan of the team that you’re writing for a bit of bias towards their squad, but we also expect “calling a spade a spade”. In short, if your homer glasses make coke bottles look paper thin, and your team can do no wrong, you’ll probably want to consider another blog.
• You go the extra mile – We love to see articles that take the extra step. Want to talk about how your team is doing compared to last year? Found an interesting tidbit that would make a good writeup? Have something about the history of your team? A rant about player/owner/officiating/commissioner X? Bring it on! As long as it fits, we’d welcome as much as you care to deliver, you’re only limited by your desire.
• You’re a team-player. We’re a fledgling community here, but we encourage partnership with each other. Commenting on others articles that are of interest, combining writeups (search “Head to head” for one such example), and discussions on the usual social media suspects are what we want to encourage here. Heck we’re all sport fans here, why not enjoy discussing what we enjoy with fellow writers and readers?
• Ability to promote yourself. SBN does promote every write-up that is authored on our site, but we encourage authors to promote their own material as well, along with other writers works that they feel their friends might be interested in. Sort of a pay-it-forward method, helping each other get the word out benefits us all.
• Being well versed in social media. Facebook and twitter are pretty much requirements, but being familiar with digg and reddit doesn’t hurt either.

Does all of that sound do-able? Okay, here’s what’s in it for you:

• Experience: The internet makes it super easy for fledgling writers to build a dossier of writing samples. And for sports writing, one of most competitive positions out there, doubly so. Here you’ll get that in spades.
• Exposure: Our traffic is increasing by 20-50% monthly since inception, and we doubt that it’ll change anytime soon.
• Doing what you love. Talking sports and having benefits attached to it? Hard to find that these days.
• Possible monetary compensation: While this is a ways away, this is the end goal for us to be able to have it so that writers can live off their work, or at the very least, buy a coffee daily with it.

So if you’ve made it this far, and am thinking to yourself “ya I’m up for the challenge!”, submit an application that has the requested information from earlier in this posting, and we’ll reply as soon as possible. Thanks to all that apply!

Popularity: 4%