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Oct 1 / Zander Freund

The Retirement of the Teaser

By the end of the week, Bleacher Report will officially retire teasers in articles.

We made this decision largely based upon feedback we have received from writers and editors alike.  The consensus seems to be that while the intentions behind teasers are good, executing them properly is quite a difficult task—and that all too often they end up detracting, rather than adding, to the quality of the compelling sports content Bleacher Report is known for.

In honor of the teaser, we will officially retire the letter “t” on the site beginning this Friday—no writer shall every type that letter again on the Open Source Sports Network.  Our apologies to Florida and Auburn fans.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment threads below.

Comments are closed.

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  • http://Agreed~butthereisfall-out... Chaz M

    Zander,
    I unders_and your reques_, bu_ I’m finding i_ challenging to wri_e wi_hou_ a le__er “_”!

    I mean _hink abou_ i_, wi_h ou_ _he le__er, _here is only Mr.”_”.

    How in_imida_ing is _ha_?

    Jus_ a _hough_.

    Peace ma_e,

    Chaz Ma__son ;-)

  • http://tribetimereport.blogspot.com Nino Colla

    No Im Ebow?! Awesome!!!

  • Bob Warja

    This is welcome news.

  • Justin Goar

    _his is comple_e bullshi_ !!!

    How am I supposed _o cheer for my _eam????

    GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO _IGERS!!!!!!!!

    Lord knows my Sain_s need all the help they can get Monday nigh_ agains_ Minneso_a.

    _o_ally _hough_less!!!!!

    oh well, happy re_iremen_ _easer!!!

  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/2122-Chris-Radez Chris Radez

    haha… good s_uff

  • Eric K

    R.I.P “t”. I-’s been real.

  • Sean Crowe

    No _easer? Where’s _he li__le blurb tha_ makes people read _he ar_icle going _o come from?

  • http://bleacherreport.com Dave

    _a _a _easer! Hello Oklahoma Ci_y HUNDER! Wha_ abou_ _he _an_alizing _op _en lis_s! I_’s going to be _ough.

  • Tim

    So happy the teasers are gone.

    So happy.

  • http://www.twinsfix.com Andrew Kneeland

    Wha_ will happen _o _he space _ha_ was used for _easers?

  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/4105-Joe-Willett Joe W.

    Bulls, Bears, Cubs, Fire, I’m good. _hank God!

  • Zander Freund

    Man, no_ sure _ha_ I realized how difficul_ _his would make _hings!

    Andrew: _he firs_ few sen_ences of _he ar_icle will _ake _he place of the _easer.

  • http://www.heavywritesthepen.com/ Angel

    Now to do something about those pesky blog importers that don’t contribute to the community. Don’t make me call names, Zander!

  • David

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    YOU WON’T!!!

    or should i say

    YOU WON’_!!!!!

  • Michael Cline

    Are you doing this to take way the Buckeye tradition of declaring our university “The Ohio State University”?

    Buckeye haters are everywhere! ;)

    _he Ohio S_a_e Universi_y!

    Go Bucks!

  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/46376-M-Brian-Ladner m brian ladner

    Did I read this correctly? Is this supposed to be a humor piece? The last bit on the letter “T” is funny, as evidenced by the comments. But the idea that we should lose the teasers because “executing them properly is quite a difficult task” sounds like a cop-out to me.

    Writing well isn’t supposed to be easy; that’s why people spend years reading, studying, and practicing. It’s also the reason we have editors—to help those (including me) who sometimes make mistakes or need some aid expressing their ideas as clearly and concisely as possible.

    By that logic, we should get rid of headlines as well. Many people find it hard to come up with something catchy that not only describes the article, but also makes it easy for a search engine to catalog.

    I find the teaser an important element in getting across more information than can be conveyed by a headline.

    And what is going to take it’s place? The first few sentences of an article are not meant to be a concise summary that draws a reader in; they are meant to introduce the article, not summarize it.

    “Retiring” the teaser is only going to put the onus for describing an article solely on the headline. With such limited space available for a headline, that task will become all the more difficult.

    If teasers are not adequately describing the articles they are meant to represent then maybe we should attempt to step up our game in that area rather than dump them altogether.

    That’s my $0.18.

  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/46376-M-Brian-Ladner m brian ladner

    As for retiring the letter “T” itself, I’m thinking I better hurry up and purchase and park the domain “bleacherrepor.com.” I have a feeling it might be worth something very soon. ;-)

  • Tim Cary

    I agree with M Brian above that removing the teaser because it’s difficult to write properly just makes the headline that much more difficult to write properly (to get the readers’ interest and clicks). We’ll see how it works, but in my mind (which I am going to keep open, by the way! :) , I’m not sure if this is an improvement.

    Thanks for all your work though.

  • College Football Fanatic

    I_’s a good _hing _ha_ _easers are now gone.

  • Nick

    absoluely righ zander.i always found ha wriing a easer was one of he harder pars of he aricle. you find yourself rying no o be oo boasful or self-cenred bu sill selling he aricle o poenial readers! bu in he end no one really read hem. oo bad im a boson and parios fan, gues hey’re now red sox and new england

    hope you undersand wha i said

    nick

  • Peter R

    Actually if your could retire a different letter it would work better for me. You see the letter h does not work well on my keyboard and so I constantly ave to double ceck my work to make sure it is included everywere it is supposed to be. Tanks for your consideration.

  • Ryan Lynch

    I completely agree with some of the above comments that question the removal of the teaser; it makes little sense to me, other than to force B/R writers to follow the “traditional” newspaper format of a “triangle” summary at the beginning of the article. If we were required to follow that format, many of B/R’s best articles would be no different then what you see on major sports websites.

    As has been said, the first few sentences of an article shouldn’t be required to be the “advertisement” that earns the clicks on our articles. This is a huge step backwards.

  • Eric Quackenbush

    Well isn’ his jus eriffic, lol? No more easers? Unless I missed it though, you should have included a teaser to send the no more teasers off in style ;)

  • yungCaucasoid

    hmmmm…I hope I didn’t motivate the retirement…considering Zander has no problem singling me out for *Admin. Acts* no doubts.

  • http://www.heavywritesthepen.com/ Angel Navedo

    The missing “T” joke has been beaten to death, fellas.

    Another note on why I’m not so pleased with the end of the teaser—it was an automatic summary for those of that use Digg, Facebook, etc to share our articles.

  • Steven Ho

    NOOOO! I loved the teasers idea because it allowed me have a kind of preview of what I was going to read. Now I’m just gonna have to base it on headlines, which can be even more vague!

    I think we should’ve had a major poll about this….

  • Zander Freund

    Hey guys,

    _hanks _o everyone for _heir helpful feedback and _hough_s!

    I realize some of you are less than pleased with this decision, but we feel strongly after examining the issue in detail that while in certain specific ways this might detract from the B/R experience, that in a picture bigger sense getting rid of teasers will vastly improve the network.

    Remember, nothing is set in stone. We will see how it goes and then evaluate—please weigh in over the next month or so and let us know what you think about the results of this course of action.

  • Eric Gomez

    I don’t agree with this move. Writing headlines is, in my mind, tougher to write than a teaser — they both describe your article, but a teaser gives you more room to introduce it and draw a reader in.

    I guess I’m going to hire a headline writer.

  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/8394-Jameson_Fleming Jameson

    I don’t see why you don’t just make it optional. I love my teasers.

  • Ronnybrook

    One problem with retiring your teaser is you’re going to hurt the SEO rankings of your authors. Has anyone at B/R given thought to that?

    $.02

  • Tyler hill

    Uhmmm. you aren’t really going to retire the letter “t” are you, without it this won’t even be “Bleacherreport” it will be “BleacherRepor”

  • Patrick Murray

    I think dropping the teaser is a bad idea also. One of my journalism professors just said the other day that just having the first few sentences of the article as the summary or “teaser” looks unprofesional and discredits the writers and website.
    I agree with Jameson, it should be optional

  • Christian Karcole

    Have to say that I also disagree. I don’t see how a teaser could be negative to an article….I mean, I like the teaser, and a lot of others do.

    Plus, if people find a teaser hard, then they need some help.

    Also, never once have I looked at an article and not liked it because of its teaser.