Pass the birthday cake: Front Row turns 1, and ESPN Images debuts

 

ESPN Front Row – Images by ESPN

ESPN Front Row celebrates its first birthday Saturday. The blog is the result of dozens of ESPN employees sharing their talents to tell the company’s story “from the inside out.”

As editor, I’ve reaped the benefits of those efforts and I’m forever grateful. I’d also like to thank you for checking us out to the tune of nearly 2 million pageviews in our first year.

We hope to eclipse that in the years to come, and we welcome your story ideas and suggestions.

But we’ll share the birthday cake this weekend with ESPN Images, our newly minted photography unit. The group’s official launch is Monday, April 2.

Front Row is among the many company units dependent upon ESPN Images’ talented photographers and editors.

For now, ESPN Images’ photography is solely for the use of our company and accredited media.

But you can sample some of ESPN Images’ wares in the gallery above, a mere sampling of the 32-year-old archive that is growing.

Check out the vintage shots of Chris Berman, Stuart Scott, Robin Roberts, Jim Valvano and plenty of other favorites, as well as more recent pictures.

“Our No. 1 goal is to be ESPN’s resource for photography,” said Barb Blake, Director, ESPN Images.

“With more than 200,000 images in the ESPN Images library and growing daily, we are committed to meeting the company’s photography needs both domestically and internationally in a timely fashion.”

Monday on Front Row, we’ll showcase the work of ESPN Images photographer Scott Clarke in a “Weekend In The Life” photo gallery.

Clarke is shooting Spring Training, and we’ll have a look at some of his great shots leading up to Opening Night next Wednesday on ESPN.