MSN Launches Player Blogs on Road to the World Cup Site

As part of MSN's new UK-based site leading up to the 2006 Soccer World Cup, they are featuring "player diaries" - which are blogs by several famous players including Brazil's Ronaldinho, England's Michael Owen, and the Netherlands' Edgar David.  What a great inside way of building fan excitement and helping them connect with players!  Each blog post is titled with the player and date, indicating that they might consolidate all these blogs into a single Player Diary blog with all entries - though they haven't done it yet.  Similar to Yahoo's Blog for Hope, it will be interesting to see how often player entries are updated as the date of the WOrld Cup comes closer.  What if the same idea was done for the Super Bowl, or the Olympics, or the World Series?  It could offer the hidden player perspective leading up to games, and revolutionize things like sports betting, or team game preparations.  Just as corporations guard their trade secrets from being revealed on blogs, teams would have to guard their game plans.  But it would offer a far more interactive way for teams and players to connect with fans.  Hollywood is already doing it - it's not surprising sports teams and players may not be far behind.

(via Media Culpa)