That's only enough time for one Chad Johnson end-zone dance

Earlier this week, the NFL began a campaign to actively shift the media’s focus on the league from athletic and coaching related activities towards more accessible media topics like dog fighting. If a reporter were video taping at the court house in Richmond this week, they would be welcomed with unfettered access to investigator press conferences and interviews with Michael Vick’s attorney’s and Federal prosecutors. The content of these interviews could then be freely posted on the reporter’s online media source. However, if the same reporter were to travel to Atlanta and interview Bobby Petrino, the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, and a few of Vick’s teammates working out at the team’s training facility, the reporter’s website would only be allowed to air a total of 45 seconds worth of footage. Why the discrepancy? The National Football League has recently announced that it will begin limiting online sources to 45 seconds per day of audio and video footage recorded on NFL property. After 24 hours, this footage must be removed and the segments have to link back to NFL.com and the pertinent team website.

For a lot of the print newspapers that have had to rely more and more on their electronic format for revenue, this seems like a pretty severe blow, but hardly a death knell. A talented group of writers can draw tons of readers through more creative online content. I would certainly hope that in the realm of everyday team coverage, a football fan would be able to find more sophisticated coverage among the professional sports writers of the newspapers than in the blog world or on the team websites. If not, then they probably shouldn’t be professional sports writers.

As for the NFL, it should come as no surprise to the readers of this blog that I believe the NFL is completely within their rights to limit video and audio broadcast of their product online. They have also not interfered with the online newspapers’ ability to broadcast interviews with players and coaches that are not recorded on NFL property. Any newspaper looking for video clips only needs to place a reporter and a camera in a strip club or gun shop right outside the team’s training facility and wait. Having had the opportunity myself to hang out with NFL stars in this environment leads me to believe that they can be much more engaging and interesting from a fan’s perspective. This example was mainly inserted for humor…mainly, but it shows that just maybe there would be a creative way for online newspapers to provide their readers with content that the NFL could not limit.

Those that are most upset about this new rule keep rambling on about how the NFL would not be what it is today without the coverage provided by the print media, but perhaps the NFL, in conjunction with most other major sports, could say the same thing. But that’s all history now. The NFL has a new television network, and every team has its own website. Times have changed, and there really isn’t anything that the NFL needs from the print media (this point can be argued, but that seems to be how the league feels) in order for its fans to be updated with current information. Fans in other arenas have begun to move their patronage elsewhere as well. Have you noticed that the stock listings section of your local newspaper has been drastically reduced or disappeared all together? Why would I unfold some big cumbersome piece of paper to find out what yesterday’s close price was whenever I could just go online and get the current price straight from the exchange? The NFL is simply following a trend in the distribution of information, where the middle-men are being taken out more and more. The online print sports guys should take a cue from their business page colleagues. Just because they don’t print the stock listings anymore, doesn’t mean they have to quit their job. I read the Wall Street Journal (online) religiously every day, and I pay a sizable sum for it. I don’t do it because that’s where I can find security prices, I do it because they write interesting articles and provide me with valuable insight that I use to make decisions both at home and at work. Put more simply, intelligent writing will attract readers more than video clips.

If the newspapers do decide to push what little leverage they have in this situation, they can simply forget to report whenever one of the NFL players does something for charity (having lived in St. Louis during the Warner years, the purchase of a home for a low-income family was an everyday occurrence), or they could report a whole lot whenever a player gets busted driving drunk in possession of a firearm.

All in all, I doubt this new rule has much effect on anything. The NFL can do whatever it wants. It really isn’t worth speculating whether or not this is a good business decision on the part of the league…Never mind, I speculate that this is probably a pretty good business decision for the league. They lose nothing while at the same time providing their sponsors with exclusivity. The newspapers have to realize, that anyone can make “online news,” I’m doing it right now, but as far as competition is concerned, I am setting the bar pretty low.

Travis
E-mail us

ESPN goes the way of MTV, who cares?

They really aren't all that different.

And just like that, the last shred of ESPN's previous glory days is completely gone from the picture.

Don't get me wrong, ESPN has grown into a hackneyed, tiresome elephant that isn't getting any better. I watch the sporting events they carry, and I occasionally watch an Outside the Lines piece. But, the ESPN as I and many others knew it is gone.

But my feelings are different than most who hate what ESPN has become. You know why? Because there are a million other places to get what I need sports-wise. When it was born, ESPN was the sole national sports news provider. There was little choice about where to get your sports information outside of the local newscast's three-minute sports bit or tomorrow's newspaper. The innovation they provided will always be felt. But, because of that innovation, everyone else eventually figured out that it would be a good idea to jump on and start mass broadcasting sports.

Now that ESPN has become fat and happy, they have ceased to possess the edge that once made them great. But, I'll end my criticism there. ESPN can do what they wish, and getting angry about it is absolutely pointless. For every angry blogger that makes a list of all the reasons why ESPN sucks, there are ten fat, happy television watchers who don't mind hearing Stuart Scott or Chris Berman speak nonsense. For every overESPNed sports fan out there that is appalled by the asinine segment currently running called "Who's Now?", there is a viewer who is just fine with consuming it.

The funniest part of this is that it all seems eerily similar. Know why? MTV did the exact same thing.

Once upon a time, MTV was badass. Programming was rife with music videos, music shows, edgy cartoons and the occasional Real World (which at the time was the only reality show, and thus acceptable). Then, something changed. MTV started cutting back on its music-based programming and started to focus more on reality shows, comedy programs and popular culture shows. As MTV was in the process of transitioning out of being a majority music-based network, they added M2, which eventually became MTV2. They transitioned most of their music-based programming to M2, and those that were lucky enough to get M2 on their cable package could still watch shows like 120 Minutes, Yo! MTV Raps and Amp. Eventually MTV2 transitioned into a slightly tweaked version of late-1990s MTV and became full of spare crap like its parent company. Now they are basically the same network with a few different shows. MTV puts more focus on the TV than the M, and that's fine. They found the audience that would make them buckets of money and stuck with it. That's called being a smart business.

The beauty about the time frame of MTV's transition out of being a music-based network was the rise of the Internet. Now, instead of waiting on 120 Minutes to tell me a new Jon Spencer Blues Explosion or Faith No More album was coming out, I could get on the Internet and find out everything I needed to know. In the past few years, with the advent of Youtube, even having a network to broadcast music videos has become obsolete. You can find them all on the Internet already and watch exactly the ones you want to see without wading through the occasional terrible one as you used to have to do when MTV still showed music.

As time progressed, ESPN found their niche also. They have found that following the E, P and N in their name will make them more money than the S. If that's how they find success, then let them go right ahead. Just don't believe them when they purport to put their journalism first, because that is an obvious lie. But the beauty of it all is that we don't have to get our sports news from ESPN anymore. In essence, ESPN's change and MTV's have been the same, and the world's information consumption has transitioned with it.

So, my recommendation to those of you who are fed up with ESPN's mediocre-to-bad programming: start watching ESPNews, a Fox Sports affiliate or the Internet. Lord know there's plenty out there to consume.

Reasonably yours,
Scooter
E-mail us