This is the time of year for predictions, so here goes. During 2008, at least one newspaper will collapse its daily standalone sports section into the rest of the paper, conceding that it can only compete on local coverage and scrapping all national sports coverage.
The foreshadowing of this event was written about in the New York Times, which noticed that the likes of ESPN and Yahoo are hiring top talent away from newspapers. Amidst all of the job cutting, the papers can't justify paying to retain high-priced sports writers.
Some print publications, notably Sports Illustrated, have selectively tried to keep up with the lucrative ESPN and Yahoo offers, to retain some of their writers or attract new ones. But for the most part, newspapers, though they are being forced to raise some salaries, cannot keep up. Several say they are suffering through the worst talent drain their editors can recall.“My counteroffer usually comes down to asking them what kind of cake they want at their goodbye party,” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, assistant managing editor for sports at The Washington Post, which has lost three writers to ESPN in the last year and a half. “The numbers they throw around are out of reach.”
The reason newspapers will eventually have to shed national sports coverage isn't that they don't have good reporters and columnists. It will be because ESPN just trounces them. Fans will read Yahoo or SI. Regional newspapers won't be able to keep pace. Local newspapers will be relegated to covering only local teams. And they won't need a standalone, daily section to do it.
Comments (5)
I've ran into the NYT article several times over the last few days and I wonder if you may be right about the future of the sports section. I think it will be a while before you'll see the 'major' dailies switching, not just because they are huge revenue drivers for them, but because they are the ones that are waging a war in the press box. Many Internet writers with 'legitimate' and long-standing credentials with traditional media are being shut out of some events or given limited access because the traditional (more print than anyone else) are so entrenched in the press corps and they have probably thrown hissy-fits about these 'Net operations. We shall see, right?
Posted by Jason | December 29, 2007 1:21 PM
Posted on December 29, 2007 13:21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/02/AR2007120201545.html
Interesting article in the Post about how start-ups are hiring sports writers away for LOCAL sports coverage as well.
Posted by Rob | December 29, 2007 1:45 PM
Posted on December 29, 2007 13:45
Thanks, Rob, for bringing that article to our attention. Two points:
1) I've warned for a long time that the flow of reporters, editors and others away from traditional media companies has consequences. Often these people pop up as competitors. Here's a quote from the Post article.
"DigitalSports's content comes from a mix of journalists who have left big media companies, including The Washington Post, and novices, as well as coaches, players and parents."
2) Somehow I missed the news that Yahoo bought Rivals.com. This is important because it's another of the sites on my list of top prospects for being bought.
Posted by Lucas | December 29, 2007 10:02 PM
Posted on December 29, 2007 22:02
I don't think being "relegated" to covering your local teams is that much of a problem, since fans won't care if you use AP or sent a staffer to cover an out-of-state matchup.
Unless you're SI.com or ESPN.com or the like, fans don't come to your site (or your paper) for your coverage of the NFL or MLB. They come to your for coverage of your NFL or MLB team. If they care about another area's team, like the Patriots or the Red Sox, they'll go to Boston.com, not your baseball page.
Losing your local people to a local rival, now, that's an issue...
Posted by ziggy | January 1, 2008 2:05 PM
Posted on January 1, 2008 14:05
What Ziggy says sounds easy and simple enough for him. But for a lot of newspaper editors, that's a big gulp of pride to swallow. That's why I think the change will be a significant difference during 2008.
Posted by Lucas | January 1, 2008 5:27 PM
Posted on January 1, 2008 17:27