What are you defining as a blog?
For our purposes, a blog must meet the following requirements:

• Reverse chronological order to entries
• Ability for readers to comment directly to a post (some sites rely on a forum, which doesn't score as well as a community builder, but is not necessarily a disqualification)
• Freedom from editorial restrictions
• Presence of original content

There may be exceptions, but the blog must demonstrate strength in other criteria if requirements make it impossible to measure all criteria.

Why isn't [my favorite blog] on the list?
For several of the verticals, there are often many sites that contend for the top ten positions. Baseball for example, was narrowed down to about 35 sites that could have made the top ten. We'll be revisiting these lists often and taking into account that certain measurable factors may become more or less relevant. For example, while page views is still an excellent way to measure traffic to a site, we're closely observing the growing use of RSS and ways to measure readership from such syndication.

How could you rate [xxx] blog's community higher than [yyy]'s?
A blog's community is not just based on the total number of comments, but also on a measure of relevance. Also, the number of unique commentators in a blog is taken into account as well as the number of comments contributed. Finally, some communities are not measurable for a variety of reasons (registration required message boards, no comments allowed). In these cases, an estimation of community is used, but is never as strong as an active, evident online community.

How can I make sure my blog is being considered?
Our database includes over 3500 blogs, but because we rely on human analysis for some criteria, we may occasionally miss a blog that should be considered. If you have a site that you feel isn't being reviewed fairly, or if you have a new blog that you feel we should keep an eye out for, then email us at tips@sportsmediachallenge.com. We'll make sure the blog is considered for the SBI and it will also be used in our Buzz Manager database for tracking.