Last Tuesday night, Bob Costas' HBO show, Costas Now, featured a
segment dedicated to looking at the internet sports media. In order to complete
their in-depth examination, Costas and his producers brought onto
the stage the following experts on the subject area:
- Will Leitch, manager/editor/whatever of a sports blog site called
Deadspin,
- Buzz Bissinger, a sportswriter and, apparently, a rage-infused lunatic,
- Braylon Edwards, who appears to have enough wisdom regarding the internet and media to
steadfastly avoid both.
Costas' enmity for the blogging community hasn't been a secret, so it was
anticipated that the segment would provide him an arena to tee off on the lack
of professionalism found in many blogs. For my part, I was curious as to what in
the world Edwards was doing there. (Answer: Eyeing the fastest escape routes).
Other than being loud, the program didn't offer anything new in terms of
understanding the conflict which has arisen between bloggers and the traditional
sports media. It did provide a great deal of angst, profanity, and softballs for
bloggers who like mocking the mainstream press, so commentary on it was
difficult to avoid if you spend any time on sports web sites.
If you're like me and don't subscribe to HBO, or just like hearing people
fuss at each other, you
can see the segments here or below:
Essentially, Bissinger pointed out how much he despises the type of content
he finds on blogs and Leitch rationalized providing entertainingly vacuous
blog posts at a furious pace. For his part, Braylon Edwards tried retain his dignity while dodging
any salivary shrapnel which found its way into his personal space.
I wouldn't say that the group was completely clueless, but each views the
conflict through the narrow prism of their individual efforts. Some of the facts
you hear are true: Newspapers really are quantifiably struggling, some blog
sites focus on the sensational and the profane, and so forth.
But a lot of the conclusions are simply wrong. Sites like Deadspin aren't "the
future" and real sports journalism is far from doomed.
Before I explain why their conclusions are incorrect and angst unwarranted,
let's briefly examine what happens when new technology arrives and screws
everything up. I'll try to get through the geekspeak as fast as possible.
Disruptive Technologies 101
Before I started publishing the Orange and Brown Report, I was able to carve
out a decent living as a management consultant for one of the "Big Five"
consulting firms. Most of my clients were large and established companies and, like
the print media, they were struggling with the way that the
internet challenged the fundamental underpinnings of their industry.
They generally struggled even more after I gave them the bill for consulting
services, but that's a different issue.
My clients were dealing with many of the same issues that are causing so much
consternation in newspaper offices around the country.
The smart ones will survive the ensuing shake-out. Those who stand to the
side, castigating the new entrants for their snotty impertinence, will fail. The
ecosystem is changing rapidly, and those who can't evolve will become extinct.
In memory of what was once a promising career, here are some of my favorite 2001 buzzwords applied to the sports media:
Disintermediation: Goodbye middle-man. Just like Dell could
sell directly to the consumer rather than having to stock computers at Sears,
teams and leagues can now go directly to fans without relying on the old
gatekeepers in the media. They can "sell direct" by opening up their
own websites and stocking them with in-house writers.
Perfect Markets: Before the mid-90s, if you had
two stores selling a particular item in your town, you had to run between them to comparison shop. If you
just had one, you were basically out of luck. Customers had to buy whatever the
stores had at whatever price they put on it, or go without. This "imperfect market"
changed dramatically as the internet appeared. The availability of dozens of
web-based stores and comparison
shopping portals dramatically drove down margins, forcing retailers to drive
down costs to compete in a low-margin environment.
Similarly,
fans can quickly move between dozens of sports sites, reading what they like, rather
than being limited to whatever paper is in their town. Speed and quality are now
the differentiators, not availability. Newspapers are having to dramatically
push down their expenses.
Ease of Entry: In order to sell things prior to 1995, you
needed a physical presence: buildings, inventory, people. It took a lot of time
and money to build, discouraging competition, or at least dramatically slowing
it. Amazon and its kin
changed that. Likewise, getting into the news business now involves spending
ten minutes registering on Wordpress, rather than requiring access to an expensive
infrastructure to store, print, and deliver paper. New competitors arrive one
after another, an endless stream of fans providing "news" and commentary.
The media thinks that their battle is somehow unique, but it's far from it.
It's all the same thing.
The Roar of the Doomed
Should media members be upset about what is happening to their industry?
Certainly. Disruption often helps consumers but throws suppliers into chaos. It has a human cost,
both economic and psychological. People lose their jobs, see their salaries
diminish or have to work harder to survive in the new environment.
Ask yourself, though: Is that the argument that's being made against bloggers
by shows like Costas Now?
Not in the slightest.
People like Bissinger, Costas and many others claim to be upset about
what is being written, aand blogs like Deadspin give them lots of
ammunition.
But that's not really honest. What's really upsetting them is how technology
has disrupted their industry and seeing how they've been reduced from being the
gatekeepers of information to having to compete in a newly vast sea of yammering
voices.
What they're really saying is "what we do is better than what these new
punks do".
What you hear from Bissinger, et al, is similar to what proprietors of a Mom and Pop bookstore in Ohio
might have said about Amazon.com back in 2000. I can hear it now: "They don't give
personalized service", "You can't even talk to a person", "Who wants to shop at
a computer?", "I can't imagine a world without a real bookstore", etc, etc.
I view these sorts of attacks as just hastening their demise. The
thrust of programs like Costas Now reek of self-interest. Once the
media starts reporting about itself, objectivity tends to go out the window.
Deadspin isn't their problem. It's just an example of how some of
the new entrants fail to respect old boundaries. They appear to be youngsters
who haven't paid their dues and who are suddenly prosperous in an industry
filled with financial misery. Of course the old guard will hate them, but that's
missing the point entirely.
The roaring and anger you hear about blogs are the same sounds that dinosaurs
made as they sank into the tar pits. It's the mournful sound of doomed members
of a species which is failing to adapt and sees itself becoming extinct.
Blogging isn't the mainstream media's enemy. Blogs are just nice packaged
bundles of technology which allow people to push words into web browsers without
much technical know-how. Those words aren't inherently better or worse than the
ones that appear in newspapers. Irresponsible journalists can work for
newspapers. Good analysis can appear in blogs.
If they want to survive, what the mainstream media needs to change its tune.
It needs concern itself with a somewhat different set of issues, which are much
harder to tackle than standing to the side clucking at internet versions of
Howard Stern or Don Imus.
Tomorrow, I'll explain what the traditional media should really be
worried about, why I wouldn't pay a lot of money to buy Deadspin,, and
why Buzz Bissinger doesn't need to throw himself off a ledge.
Barry McBride is the publisher of the Orange and Brown Report and can be
reached at barry@theobr.com.
He confesses to being overly familiar with Microsoft Powerpoint.