The gossip-centric website, TMZ has registered the TMZSports.com domain name.
TMZ is expected to unleash the sport spinoff sometime early in 2010. This is seen by some as another unintended consequence of the Tiger Woods mess, which boosted the interest across the board in sports scandals.
The Tiger Woods Scandal is given credit for helping to boost TMZ's unique vistors the first week of December by more than 2 million from the year before.
If TMZ does enter the sports-celebrity zone, it will test ESPN and the rest of the mainstream media's desire to stay out of the reporting of the sports version of illicit romances, and power partying.
The biggest new factor TMZ will bring to the table is money. They are more than willing to pay cold hard cash for stories. That means videos or photos supplied through social media that will end up on the website.
It will be especially interesting to see where ESPN decides to draw the line between basic reporting and gossip.