Now that we've introduced and reviewed ESPN.com, it's time to give you a tour of how the website actually works. We'll cover some of the different sections and functions in more detail in some of our other tutorials, but for now, here's what you're likely to see on the main page or when you read an article on the website.
ESPN.com main page
Across the very top of the page, you can see the latest scores and matchups from sports leagues that have recently had games played, or have games upcoming. You can change which league you see scores and matches for by clicking the drop-down menu that says Top Events and selecting a league. You can use the arrows at either end of the header to scroll through events if they do not all fit on the screen (and you may be able to use an additional drop-down menu to select a date for which to view matches).
Depending on the status of the event, you may have different options if you move your mouse cursor over it. If it is in progress or already over, you can look at a Recap or the Box Score. If it hasn't started yet, you can view a Preview article on it, or perhaps buy Tickets.
The bar below this is the main menu for ESPN.com. You can click the website's logo to get back to the main page at any time. Beside that, you can click one of the league names to go to a page for news about that league or sport, or move your mouse cursor over a league name for more specific options (such as schedules, standings, or player transactions). The "…" option will show you options for news about other sports, such as golf, tennis, or boxing.
We'll look at what a league news page looks like in our ESPN.com NBA Section Tour tutorial.
On the right side of this bar are additional options. Move your mouse cursor over Watch to bring up options for watching various ESPN.com video content. Move your mouse cursor over Listen for options related to listening to ESPN live radio feeds and podcasts of pre-recorded shows. Move your mouse cursor over Fantasy for a list of fantasy sports games that you can play on ESPN.com (our ESPN.com Fantasy Sports tutorial will explain this further). The little box of dots here will display ESPN.com's regional, international, and affiliate websites when you move your mouse cursor over it; click one to go there. And clicking the magnifying glass icon will allow you to search ESPN.com for specific content.
Content on the left side of the main part of the page comprises the most popular stories on ESPN.com, while content on the right side of the page is what has recently been added to ESPN.com or its Twitter feed. Scroll down the screen for more content (it will scroll endlessly), or click on a story to go to it.
ESPN.com content page
When you're reading a story, you can click the social media buttons beside it to share the story over (from top to bottom) Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or email (you must log into the first three in order to share content). You can also click the printer icon to print out this story, or the speech bubble icon to bring up the comments section. If you are logged into Facebook, you can leave a comment by clicking in the box labelled "Add a Comment", typing in what you want to say, and then clicking Post.
You can scroll down the screen for related stories, or just click on them from the list on the left-hand side of the screen (you can scroll this list, too).
That concludes our quick general tour of ESPN.com! Be sure to check out our other tutorials for instructions on how to use some of the features that we discussed in more detail!
