ESPN.com

Sports heaven is safe, but news has mature stuff.

Entertainment Value: High Graphics: Photos, video, games Playability: Easy to medium Reading Level: Medium Website: http://espn.go.com/

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this comprehensive sports site isn't really geared toward kids, but there's not much here that's inappropriate for them. Sports fans must be 13 years old to become a member, giving them access to safe forums and other "MyESPN" features, like personal profiles, blogs, and friends lists. Members only have to give up their first name and a parent's email address -- a smart move by the Walt Disney Internet Group, which owns this site. Even though most of the content is straightforward sports stats, analysis, and just plain fun, sometimes the sporting world's underbelly shows a more serious side (doping, racism, gambling) that requires a parent's -- not a message board's -- explanation and guidance. There's a link to the ESPN shop, some sponsored ads links, and ads before videos.

Families can talk about why athletes are idolized in our culture. What do athletes do that should be praised? Criticized? On a lighter note, how can young sports fans use the information on ESPN to learn math (check out the stats), geography (team locations), or history?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Dana Villamagna

Sports fans young and old cheer whenever they go to ESPN.com. Packed with sports news, stats, schedules, polls, analysis, discussion, sports-related arcade games, videos, and more, there's enough basic info here for kids that many may not even feel the need to move onto the ESPN.com SportsNation message boards. Indeed, the boards seem to be relatively on-topic and clean, and there's a "report violation" option on every post if anything does appear that is against the site's stringent rules. Yet there are some hard-hitting topics like doping, racism in sports, and other politically- and ethically-charged discussions that less mature teens may not be ready to engage in without guidance from a parent. Fully registered users can create a MyESPN profile to customize the site, have conversations with other users, and create a profile and blog. But this, too, has a safer privacy feature built in for the younger users or anyone who wants to keep it private.

For more sports fun, head on over to NBCSports.com. To check out other sports-related media, read our reviews.

Reviewed: 11/15/2007

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Content		CS	adults	kids
Content
Sexual Content
Violence
Language
Message
	Social Behavior True to life, the news and message boards sometimes include information about illegal behavior, like doping and gambling. This is written for mainly an adult audience, not taking into consideration that young teens may be reading about these athletes who are their role models.
	Commercialism Lots of ads for ESPN shows and ESPN-related products, as well as for big-ticket items like trucks and the occasional political ad. There's a link to the ESPN store.
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco Some of the articles talk about doping, but not in a positive light.
	Educational Value Sports fans will love the statistics, updates, and videos about every major and most minor American sports. This is not a site created specifically for kids or teens, however, so when the dark side of sports news is reported, it's not put into context to help kids process that information on their maturity level.