At what point should we start taking Bleacher Report seriously?

I suspect never for some.

But Ric Bucher signed with them today.

Discuss.

 

He has a radio show in the Bay Area (95.7 FM) and has been writing for the Comcast channel here.

Had a great entry in the Joe Thornton Euphemism Game. Said Thornton told the media that if he scored four goals, he'd "show off his MVP-ness."

 

It's going to take awhile for the stink they covered themselves in for a decade to wash off. But clearly signing Beck, Slotnick, Ding, Freeman and Bucher represent at least a slight push for more credibility and less SEO headline rape. (15 Reasons Why You Should Take BR Seriously Right Now!) It's clear Turner saw a limited growth model in a hive arm churning out nothing but content aggregating listicles. They have to be spending a lot of money on some of these guys.

I suppose time will tell if it really represents a shift, or if it's just temporary.

 

I've found it interesting Jason King, one of the best college basketball writers around, has been tweeting links to other peoples' Bleacher Report stories lately. At first I skipped over the links, but I eventually clicked on a couple and they weren't bad.

The most recent was an in-depth piece on shoe companies angling to sign Andrew Wiggins once he declares for the draft.

 

Adding Ric Bucher is not a step in the direction of respectability.

 

Well, he's no Andy Auger.

 

I don't know if people take Buzzfeed "seriously", but it sounds like a similar strategy. They still run lists, and cat pictures, but they've also hired a bunch of news and political writers.

I imagine BR will try to have a similar mix with their sports coverage.

 

I don't seek out anything on Buzzfeed, but I see its stuff linked a lot. When I see the lists or slideshows or whatever, they usually are reasonably funny, clever or interesting.

Bleacher Report's always seemed like they were put together by a fourth grader who would admit he didn't put any thought into it.

 

"I put two seconds thought into that statement."

-- 93Devil

 

But it might be an acknowledgement, when it's time to have someone do the CNN crossover talking-head bits, that BR's other NBA writers are, well, writers when it comes to TV.

As for the thread topic specifically, I long ago vowed never to click through or even on another BR slideshow.

 

Bleacher Report should have been taken seriously a long time ago, when it first became a multimillion dollar venture.

We may not have liked it (I still can't stand it), but it's successful. In this case, it wasn't by accident. Sure, the content was/still is awful, but the execution in a business sense is genius as much as it is devious to our business.