ESPN exec John Walsh on B.S. Report

15 years ago they might have, definitely not now.

 

Yeah, they would have all left newspapers for the web anyway!

 

I'd agree with that.

 

Umm, Frank didn't say "we're above fantasy sports." He said it's not news. And it's not.

MMA, on the other hand ...

 

I'd consider a fantasy sports column about like an advice column. It's fluff, some people like to read it, but it's a feature, certainly not news. I can't imagine a paper wanting to devote a "beat" to fantasy football, a la Matthew Berry or a talking head at ESPN.

 

Waylon: Not really anymore. That information is all out there independently, and through AP and Stats and whatever. And in fact, in my corner of the business, a Fantasy alert will appear on those pages before AP has even moved a story. It's amazing stuff.

Newspapers used to be the main/only source of info for those kinds of things. Not anymore. They might provide a piece of it for Fantasy experts who comb every possible source of information. But Fantasy would continue on if every newspaper failed tomorrow. (Sorry, don't mean to conjur a depressing image to make a point.)

As far as newspapers having a Fantasy presence, I disagree with Frank that newspapers shouldn't do it because it's not news -- features aren't news, and dog results aren't really life-changing news except for dog players, and how to buy air-conditioner isn't news -- but I also agree with TheSportsPredictor that except as a curiosity, no regular Fantasy player is going to read weekly Fantasy sports columns in the paper as a major source of information.

 

Oh, one last piece of blasphemy: In the grand scheme of life, if you really want to get right down to it, almost NONE of what fills up a typical sports section on a typical day is news -- most of it is indeed entertainment.

 

That's funny you mention that.

I did several MMA features for the paper I used to work for because there was a fairly prominent MMA fighter from our area. I guess it was worth the coverage, but that guy was the weirdest interview I've ever done. Honestly, I think he got hit in the head too many times.

He used to call the paper randomly, like weeks after I did a feature on him and at really weird times (like midnight, or right around deadline) and engage me in these bizarre conversations about how I was doing such a good job promoting MMA, even though my boss was against MMA. But my boss had nothing against MMA at all. For some bizarre and unknown reason, this guy thought he did.

One time he told me he was getting married, and I said, "Oh, congratulations." And his reply was, "Yeah, should be a good time." I thought that was a rather strange response.

Anyways, I'm off on a tangent here.

 

Some of it's not even entertainment.

I had a ME who wanted us to just start doing random features on old women who walked two miles every day. Talk about something that's not news.

 

I disagree that newspapers failed to run fantasy-sports stuff. I worked on papers in the 1990s that did, along with the equally useless weekly sports-collectibles column. For the most part, readers did not give a shit when those items got lost in the space cutbacks. Can you show me a fantasy-sports column that doesn't blow? That's not a rhetorical question. Is AP still doing that fantasy football column? Talk about suck. It must have run 30 inches. Excruciating.

 

Walsh's rant at the beginning of the report was very good. Simmons' continual whining about the Herald just goes over my head. I don't even process it any more. I still enjoy the podcast though. I just don't need to hear Bill offer his commentary on the newspaper biz like he's some sort of expert.

 

How funny. We ran part of it for a while and got rid of it when the section shrunk. I had a guy call and ask why. Said it was indispensable to him "as an owner" in his winner-take-all money league. I REALLY wanted to join that league after that.