Before the Internet, news broke on television first. An ESPN viewer interested in a particular story
had to wait for SportsCenter to come on the air, then sit through portions of the broadcast unrelated to the
news he perceived as interesting. The Internet eliminated the waiting game. Without the time restraints of
television broadcasts, ESPN reporters could post their breaking news online as soon as the story was written.
In addition to the timeliness factor, user control reached an all-time high. Instead of waiting through televisionsegments they were not interested in, users now had the ability to read only the stories they wanted. This
was a first for sports news consumers: information on demand. Before the Internet, every other medium had
been completely controlled by the media. Media members told the consumers what information they would
receive, and when they would get it. The growth of the Internet as a news source helped to raise this me-first
generation, which in turn has set the table for the media innovations we are experiencing today. For the first
time, consumer demand is playing a prominent role in how news stories are broken as well as their content
(Olney 1).