The Sports Media Thread

[The_Admiral]

There's barely any sports as it is, what sort of degenerate paypig would cough up $100 to be told there should be even less sports?

[The_Admiral]

I mean, this is exactly what they should have done all along, but damn, timing.

[Red Comet]

As I said, let's see how they're doing in a year or two. If they fail, they could legit blame it on Xinnie the Flu instead of it more likely being that the people in charge make a six year old look like Warren Buffet when it comes to handling finances.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Red Comet

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 minute ago, Red Comet said:

As I said, let's see how they're doing in a year or two. If they fail, they could legit blame it on Xinnie the Flu instead of probably having the people make a six year old look more competent with money management. 

 

"Or two"? I wonder what their business plan is. I guess if they can make in time of COVID, then they can make it anytime. But two years sounds incredibly optimistic in a time where 2 percent of our population is dropping dead.

[Red Comet]

19 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

"Or two"? I wonder what their business plan is. I guess if they can make in time of COVID, then they can make it anytime. But two years sounds incredibly optimistic in a time where 2 percent of our population is dropping dead.

 

Actually, focusing on culture over sports would probably be a boon to them at the current moment due to not having a lot of sports. I'll consider giving them money if they write another article about all the weird things people go the ER for. Getting money via subscribers also gives them more editorial independence too. Don't need to adhere to advertiser standards if you don't need advertising after all.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Red Comet

[The_Admiral]

What more is left for them to say on the culture war? They won and won big. I know what they think, they think the same things that everyone else thinks. 

[Red Comet]

Just because you may win a war doesn't mean there isn't still an insurgency to stamp out.

 

Besides that point, everyone wants to believe they're the underdog no matter what the circumstances are. 

 

As I said, let's see how they do. If they can get blood out of a stone, I'd like to know how they did it.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Red Comet

[Digby]

It's an opportunity for readers to essentially pay writers directly. They said as much in that NYT article. With the modern proliferation of easy subscription models I've been surprised we haven't seen more of it, other than the fact that most writers can't be trusted to figure out simple accounting software. If the writers just want to make a decent livable wage, probably bolstered by the prestige freelancing some of them do, it shouldn't be hard to hit those numbers without hedge-fund leeches and a fleet of useless cubicle managers. 

 

People keep thinking the demise of Deadspin/Gawker-at-large was some moral comeuppance for their SJW nature or whatever, which is weird because the story played out in public. It started with that bizarro Hulk Hogan case, and ended with its own new empty suit sabotaging the site, with a series of corporate transactions in between that were always designed to strip-mine its assets. 

[Digby]

5 hours ago, the admiral said:

There's barely any sports as it is, what sort of degenerate paypig would cough up $100 to be told there should be even less sports?

 

This is an argument against beat writing, not post-blog blogging. Deadspin's whole shtick was "without access" in the tagline and everything. Nobody has access to the bubbles! It's the time for the off-field story people to shine.

[Sec19Row53]

2 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

"Or two"? I wonder what their business plan is. I guess if they can make in time of COVID, then they can make it anytime. But two years sounds incredibly optimistic in a time where 2 percent of our population is dropping dead.

2% of the population aren't dying. 2% of people who have caught the virus are dying.

 

Big difference.

[The_Admiral]

19 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

This is an argument against beat writing, not post-blog blogging. Deadspin's whole shtick was "without access" in the tagline and everything. Nobody has access to the bubbles! It's the time for the off-field story people to shine.

 

In theory, yeah, but what shining has Drew Magary done recently? All he's done is scold. That's about all that's left to do: scold Manfred, scold wrong-thinking fans, and get mad at Dave Portnoy again. sound/fury/nothing.

 

If, and it's a big if, the subscription model means less writing but of higher quality because they don't have to whore out for pageviews all day, they could have something good here, because about 10-20% of Deadspin was good. But if they're going to crap out as much content as they had to for Denton and the succession of venture capitalists who bought the place, well, a constant feed of "Dumbass Pissbaby Owner Is A Toilet Dumpster Who Does Dumb Toilet Things Because He's Dumb" isn't worth a cent.

[Digby]

I don't personally care about Magary, the big-dumb-bro-dad-but-enlightened shtick is irritating and I don't trust it, but somebody must like him enough to keep getting fiction book deals (that I won't read) and GQ profiles (which are fine). There's an entire community around those Jambaroo things that will throw them money.

 

But there's a bunch of other people on that masthead! The Burneko and Roth genre of essays, I don't know, people eat that stuff up and it doesn't hinge on a ball being thrown last night. I can imagine Diana Moskovitz has plenty of actual malfeasance to uncover. Also a hell of a time to consider the decade-long McKenna vs the Skins feud. A time of racial justice protests, Dan Snyder getting dragged, and the blazingly obvious commerce-before-common-sense that is the very existence of pro sports right now, if anything that's the perfect environment for Actual Deadspin to exist in for its audience.

 

Also anytime Deadspin and Culture Wars come up in the same breath I feel obligated to mention that they published the most prescient thing that's actually about the Culture Wars, all the way back in 2014 when we were all young and stupid and naive. https://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844 

 

[Red Comet]

1 hour ago, Sec19Row53 said:

2% of the population aren't dying. 2% of people who have caught the virus are dying.

 

Big difference.

 

Not to downplay it, but 2% of the US population would be 9,000,000 dead. The only age group where it so far has a fatality rate north of 10% are people 80 or older. That's not to downplay anything at all, I'm saying it would be a hell of a jump from 150,000 to 9,000,000 and if the virus had that kind of leap in lethality while still remaining as transmissible, then we're now actually living in a pandemic movie not just perpetually stuck in the first 15 minutes of one.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Red Comet

[DG_ThenNowForever]

2 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

 

Not to downplay it, but 2% of the US population would be 9,000,000 dead. The only age group where it so far has a fatality range north of 10% are people 80 or older. That's not to downplay anything at all, I'm saying it would be a hell of a jump from 150,000 to 9,000,000 and if the virus had that kind of leap in lethality while still remaining as transmissible, then we're now actually living in a pandemic movie.

 

9,000,000 people haven't died from COVID, but I don't believe that 150,000 number either. I think it's more, and I think there are unscrupulous people in powerful places looking to downplay COVID and its effects as much as possible.

 

Wear a mask and stop going to the beach. Then we can be back in the NFL stadiums by October. If we had just worn masks and stayed home in April AND May AND June, we'd mostly be done with this by now.

 

This is the kind of story Deadspin 2.0 would write.

[Digby]

I think the beach is probably fine but going to the beachfront bar afterward is the bad idea. Also the Deadspin 2.0 story is that the real issue is that corporate scum pressuring their employees back into crappy unventilated offices for no reason is vastly more dangerous than individuals getting a quick hit of outdoor summer fun. This is a worthwhile thread derail. 

[Red Comet]

Okay, so the $99/year package isn't just for unlimited articles. That is the minimum these assclowns are requiring in order to comment on their articles. What, is Twitter bending over backwards because you can't handle a few trolls not good enough? I'm glad Deadspin fired these hacks. 

 

And this goes for anyone who charges $99/year to comment. If you hate comments that much, at least disable them so you can show the world how hypersensitive to criticism you are. It isn't about "triggering the SJWs, owning the SJWs" because its more about narcissism than politics. Let's see how they run the show when it comes time to pay their employees. 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Red Comet

[BBTV]

I've never seen a comments section of any site that is of any value and isn't just ridden with trolls or people with below average IQs that simply didn't have the capability to grasp what point the content was trying to convey.  Putting a price on it should at least help eliminate those people.  I would doubt it has much to do about a fear of being criticized, it's a desire to increase the signal-to-noise ratio so that it's worth someone's time to read and possibly respond to the comments.

 

Hell - I wish this site charged $99/year if it would filter out most of the clowns and trolls... including the trollbot.

[Digby]

22 hours ago, Red Comet said:

You know I recall in this thread saying something about people from Deadspin going out and proving that there is still an interest in sports coverage with a progressive take. Looks like they've gone out and done it. Let's see how Deadspin and Defector are doing a year from now. Would be interesting to see it unfold. Tbf, Outkick would probably be a better comparison considering they are the right-wing counterpart to Defector.

 

Similar in that they're both sites that rely on serving a specific audience rather than the world at large, but other than that this is a false equivalence. Deadspin's worst habit was being finger-waggy and annoying; Clay Travis loudly proclaims coronavirus a hoax.

 

On charging to comment... relax. Deadspin's thing since the early days was the comments section being exclusive and actually readable; how it's not riddled with your neighborhood's dumbest trolls, how it's a community unto itself. This is just the writers asking that community to fund them, not some kind of troll-filter scheme, and that really ought to be obvious. It's not about being "hypersensitive to criticism" because valid criticism never manifests in comments sections.

[Digby]

https://awfulannouncing.com/nbc/wide-nbcuniversal-cuts-include-hardball-talk-college-basketball-talk-rsns.html

 

NBC Sports is gutting their local stations and digital presence.

 

pivot to video

 

Quote

AA has learned that this is part of a larger NBC Sports Digital emphasis on video, which covers reaction videos, but also particularly the game streams to the events NBC has national or regional rights to.

 

I kid, I don't care about the -Talk sites much. But this does point to a question I've had with RSNs for years, namely: who the heck is watching them when games aren't on? NBC Sports Boston has at least a half-dozen telecasts of men in suits sitting at desks and issuing sports takes, and I can't imagine why anyone watches them. Figures that those are sticking around but a bunch of their actual reporters are layoff victims, just in time for a Celtics playoff run too.

[Sec19Row53]

NHLTalk still seems regularly updated, and not by AP stories.

 

Not sure I will miss Craig at HardballTalk, as he couldn't write a baseball story without inserting his views on business/politics/other into nearly every one of them. I get it -- I know where you stand -- but I'm just here to read about the games I missed.