The Sporting Tribune launches brand-new website and announces plans to launch mobile app, photo wire service and podcast network next month.
Founded by journalist Arash Markazi and scientist Chris Mattmann, The Sporting Tribune covers sports in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii.
Former Las Vegas Review-Journal sports editor Bill Bradley, ESPN deputy editor Jon Scher and The Athletic editor Josh Cooper join the team.
Jim Murray Memorial Foundation Founder and CEO, Linda Murray Hofmans, joins as Director of Marketing and Sponsorships.
Growing newsroom includes award-winning writers and photographers from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, USA Today and Los Angeles Times.
LOS ANGELES (August 1, 2024) – The Sporting Tribune launched a brand-new website today and announced plans to launch a mobile app, photo wire service and a podcast network in September.
The platform launched in September 2022 with a focus on professional and collegiate sports in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii. The area is the regional territory for many teams, including the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers and Angels, and the broadcast area for the regional networks carrying their games.
Veteran journalist Arash Markazi, who has covered the area for over 20 years at Sports Illustrated, ESPN and the Los Angeles Times, founded the company along with data scientist Chris Mattmann, who was recently named the Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence Officer at UCLA after a storied 24-year career at NASA JPL where he was the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer.
Markazi will serve as the Chief Content Officer while Mattmann will serve as the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at The Sporting Tribune as the company seeks to reach and serve sports fans in new and innovative ways. Mattmann’s background in journalism includes the invention of the Apache Tika software, a widely used framework for content detection and analysis, which allowed journalists to break the story on the Panama Papers, ultimately winning the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
Joining Markazi and Mattmann in leading The Sporting Tribune into a new era will be a trio of experienced newsroom leaders in Bill Bradley, Jon Scher and Josh Cooper, who will serve as senior editors.
Bradley was previously the sports editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city went from no major professional sports teams to three teams in the NFL, NHL and WNBA in the span of just three years. He was also a Coordinating Producer at NFL Media and served as the Sports Editor at the Sacramento Bee and The Tennessean. Scher was previously a managing editor at The Athletic and a deputy editor at ESPN while Cooper was a content strategist at The Athletic and launched the expansion of The Athletic in Los Angeles.
“I am incredibly proud of the team we have built and continue to build at The Sporting Tribune,” Markazi said. “When we launched the company just under two years ago, I could not have dreamed of being where we are today and working with the incredibly talented and accomplished individuals I am now blessed to call teammates. I can’t wait to continue to build this company along with them.”
The new website and app were designed and developed by BoomPress, a leading content management system (CMS) provider, which has a proven track record of helping local sports outlets create a unique and identifiable brand, publish content, monetize, and engage with their audience.
In addition to launching a new website and app, The Sporting Tribune is also launching a sports photography wire service and digital archive, "The Sporting Tribune Images" as well as “The Sporting Tribune Podcast Network,” which will produce shows that cover professional and collegiate sports teams in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii. The shows will be filmed at Manhattan Beach Studios, which were the Southern California film and television production hub that hosted James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment as well as Marvel Studios’ shoots for blockbuster films such as Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, and The Mandalorian. Ric Tapia, who has shot for Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NFL Nike and Gatorade, will lead the photo department, while Lauren Jones, who was the lead podcast producer at the SpringHill Company and an associate podcast producer at Uninterrupted and has also worked at ESPN, Fox Sports and Snapchat, will lead the podcast network.
Also joining the team is Linda Murray Hofmans, who was founder and CEO of the Jim Murray Foundation for the past 25 years before recently passing the reigns of the foundation on to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. She will become the new Director of Marketing and Sponsorships and will work closely with potential sponsors and partners in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii.
The Sporting Tribune also continues to grow an impressive staff of journalists, photographers, designers, videographers, producers, and editors to cover the largest and most picturesque territory in all of sports.
In addition to Markazi, who will write a regular column from the biggest events in the region, the editorial staff includes Steve Carp, who was with the Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review-Journal for 30 years and is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, and the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame. He also was named Nevada Sportswriter of the Year six times by the Nevada Sports Media Association. Also on the growing staff is Mark Medina, who was previously a senior writer at NBA.com, a national NBA reporter for USA Today and a staff writer for the Bay Area News Group, Los Angeles Daily News and the Los Angeles Times; Doug Padilla, who has worked at ESPN, Chicago Sun-Times and Los Angeles Daily News; W.G. Ramirez, who was a Southern Nevada correspondent for USA Today and since 2012 has been a correspondent for the Associated Press; Fernando Ramirez, who was previously with Sports Illustrated, NBC and the South Bend Tribune; and Taylor Blake Ward, who was previously with Baseball America and oversees the site’s baseball coverage.
All reporters will have a presence in The Sporting Tribune’s daily newsletter, The Morning Column, and its daily radio show and podcasts, which can be heard in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii.
