Since I lost my weekly sports column back in early January 2009 due to the economy (in case you haven’t heard, newspapers and Web sites are struggling for advertisers), I’ve been pondering the current state of sports media and my place in it.
But the more thought I have devoted to it over the past few months, I’ve come to realized four things: a) I’m not that talented; b) no wants a no-name writer from a small town who hasn’t been a slave to a big-time newspaper and “built” a following; c) I haven’t missed it as much as I thought I would; and d) I’m not marketable.
That last one, while not surprising, plays a bigger role than we think in a vast majority of things involving sports – from writing to television, how we receive them and how we interpret them.
Case in point, there’s a great podcast by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com about the monster itself, highlighted by his conversation with the outgoing ESPN ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber.
The highlight for me was a thread where Simmons posed to Schreiber the hypocrisy of ESPN’s “journalistic integrity” on Sports Center all while breaking things down on the Budweiser Hot Seat and taking calls on the Subway Fresh Take Hotline. Simmons even laid a dig on his own podcast, aptly titled “The B.S. Report,” which is also sponsored by Subway.
Conversely, Schreiber nailed her take, which was essentially, blame DVR/TiVo. And she’s exactly right.
A nation obsessed with “watching it later” and avoiding commercials may want to notice that the commercials are seeping into the shows we watch.
On ESPN, we have the aforementioned Budweiser Hot Seat, Subway Fresh Take and the Coors Light Cold Hard Facts.
But it’s not just ESPN.
A couple months ago, my wife was watching the new ‘90210’and we kept noticing the strategic placement in one three-minute scene of Dr. Pepper. It was always visible behind the characters shoulder – no matter which character was talking.
I became obsessed with this revelation and began rewinding and watching the whole thing like it was the Zapruder film. Back and to the left.
Back and to the left.
Back. And. To. The. Left.
Advertiser’s infiltration into our subconscious is almost comical. Hell, at times, my wife catches me singing the FreeCreditReport.com jingle.
I can’t help it – it’s just catchy. What’s troubling is I don’t know I’m even doing it.
But what happens when it begins to affect how we digest sports and how sports information is presented to us?
Frankly, it’s a deeper and darker conversation than I think most sports fans care to have, because it’s affecting the way we get our sports coverage and how we interpret the information presented.
John Walsh, Simmons boss at ESPN, says that the newspapers demise started in the 1950s. “The powers that be, and status-quo, in newspapers stopped covering everything,” said Walsh on the podcast last week.
Walsh indicated that newspapers and magazines began ignoring the developing stories, like the 1960s counter-culture, sports on cable, the internet and computers. Simmons chimed in about he agreed because back in the 90s at the Boston Herald, he’d tried to pitch a fantasy sports column and was stonewalled.
In essence, the argument is that newspapers are to blame for their downfall.
Perhaps. Newspapers in general have a variety of flaws, but the crux of the argument is filled with dimwitted half-truths and fails to take into account a number of key components.
I would agree that lack of creativity is a problem at large and small papers across the country. But it’s small minded to think that people would eat up more copies of the paper, subscribe or read certain articles (thereby increasing profits for the company and paid advertisers) just because the coverage changes to include those topics that weren’t popular at the time.
Devoting more time to developing stories might have helped over the past 50 years, but let’s be honest – the counter-culture wasn’t even slightly interesting to the guy who worked an investment job from 8-5. Did anyone want to watch professional bowling at 8 o’clock on a Thursday night in 1985 on ESPN – or did they want to watch Cheers?
You must take into account the era and how information was gathered and received.
For example, does anyone think Bob Knight would have lasted five years as a basketball coach if the internet, blogging and “Around the Horn” were around in 1978?
Furthermore, it is easy to look back on something that’s big and in retrospect call it a movement and say that everyone else should have gotten behind it. Remember what happened to the counter-culture movement? It died when it was no longer counter and became popular culture, because you’re only weird until enough people think you’re not, right?
Back in the 1990s, we rolled the bottom of our jeans in middle school – why? Because everybody did it. It was just cool and I can’t explain it, since I don’t even know. You were weird if you didn’t roll your jeans. A few years passed and rolling your jeans became weird (as it should be).
And that’s what happens, as a country, we change and evolve.
So for newspapers to be behind with the times, well, yes…they report what’s happening now. Newspapers were never meant to be ahead of the curve, they weren’t built for that.
Frankly, you can’t report everything that’s going on – there aren’t enough pages (or advertisers) to support that.
But what that gap in coverage did is pave the way, with the emergence of the right media (or medium), to fill those gaps. The internet is an indefinite amount of space that cannot be quantified, a library that can never be filled. It is the next step in communication.
You want to read about 80s cartoons? You can bet there’s a blog on it, a site to buy it and another to trash it. Want to know about what B-movie actor from a cheesy 1970s horror flick did after that film? You can find it, where he lives and who he married. Need the lyrics to that song you haven’t been able to get out of your head? Google it, baby.
Sports, trivia, news, politics, music, shopping – it’s all on the internet. No need to go to a store or pick up a book to find what you need.
Some say that’s a bad thing. Newspapers would certainly agree about where you get your news – except their fatal flaw was giving away for free what you could read in the paper for a fee.
So at some point earlier this decade, the graph lines crossed and newspapers could no longer compete with the internet’s massive expansion and capabilities.
But here’s the thing – there’s still a place for the newspaper. It’s local. CNN.com going to cover state high school basketball, provide a look at the local political candidates running for county council? Think that some national Web site will publish a few photos and do a story on a new local playground and the local companies that funded it?
Large market papers are falling by the wayside, as are county papers. Does it suck? Yeah, it does. It has flooded a job market full of writers with nothing to write about. In a way, it’s the same thing that happened during the Industrial Age.
It’s not that bloggers have stolen the jobs of qualified journalists, it’s just our minds don’t want to sit and scan the pages of the paper for the three things that interest us.
By the time a local paper prints, I already know what the President’s speech was, how it impacts me, the state and the country. I know the score of the big game and what celebrity adopted a kid from Africa this week.
As for opinion columns, the canned clichés of the past don’t work. I want someone who breaks it down differently, who’ll through in a little humor, who knows watches the same shows and makes the right analogy.
Problem is, everything is owned by about four companies.
Let’s go back to our good friends at the Worldwide Leader. Since Mickey Mouse owns ABC and ESPN, the Disney brand floods everything. How about ESPN the Weekend at Walt Disney World! We’ll even send our radio guys there, bring in some sports celebs and tell you how great it is – it only costs $1,500 for the trip, which most people can’t afford.
But it’s synergy – and that’s the wave of the future. In the forgettable and crappy movie, “In Good Company,” Dennis Quaid’s sports magazine is bought by a conglomerate that tries to tie in cell phones and cereal.
The best part is the hilarious (for its ridiculousness) speech by mogul Teddy K. who explains (or doesn’t) synergy, the merging of products and brands that have no real connection.
And there’s the downfall of our current medium and media movement. When I’m watching the NFL, I don’t really care about the next episode of “Fringe.”
It’s the promotion of self-promotion that has me most bummed out, because, as I said – I’m just not marketable.
So I guess there’s not a place for someone like me at ESPN or Fox Sports – as a writer or a fan.
That fan part should scare you a little too, because if we’re pushed out and ignored, what are they making and who are they making it for? With newspapers dying a slow, yet natural death, is the current rage of blogs, podcasts, streaming video and journalistic climate ready to meet our demands?
Or are they just this decade’s version of rolled jeans?
(Note: This was originally written in March 2009.)
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