ESPN The Magazine's 2009 NEXT campaign has begun. Unsure of what NEXT is? It's a ten-year concept for The Mag, in which editors and writers work to identify the athletes (and concepts) about to break out. The very first cover of ESPN The Magazine ever was this right here: a NEXT issue spotlighting Kobe Bryant, Eric Lindros, Alex Rodriguez and Kordell Stewart circa winter 1998 (hey, three out of four ain't bad!) Since then, we've selected such icons as LeBron James and Brian Urlacher as NEXT.
The four athletes this year are: Atlanta Falcons QB Matt Ryan, Tampa Bay Rays P David Price, racer Joey Logano, and international hoops savant Ricky Rubio. You—yes, you—will determine, via voting, who gets selected as NEXT athlete.
There's a bunch of stuff for you to poke around through: the overall NEXT homepage can be found here (that'll give ya everything!). The pages for the individual athletes are here:
RICKY RUBIO
JOEY LOGANO
DAVID PRICE
MATT RYAN
On those pages you can find targeted content on the athletes themselves. Voting will run from November 10th to November 17th. Can you figure out who's the next KB24 in here? Start investigating.