Minnesota Timberwolves/GA reporter, St. Paul Pioneer Press

Wire copy is ubiquitous, unfortunately. The CBC building in Toronto is a 10-minute walk from the Air Canada Centre and a five-minute walk from the dome, and the online sports department just settles for Canadian Press reports of Leafs and Jays home games.

 

Do many NBA beat writers stay in Ritz-Carltons these days, old_Tony? You're not going to run into Kevin Love at the Marriott Courtyard Natomas, methinks. National writers break all that news now primarily because they are one-stop shopping for agents, who don't need to deal with 30 different team beat writers like they did 20 years ago.

 

I read a book on Wilt's 100-point game - I can't remember the name and if somebody can help me, I'd appreciate it.

The NBA in the early 1960s was a lot different. Teams used to play out of town games in nearby cities or parts of All-NBA doubleheaders. The Knicks weren't a good team so it didn't seem like an attractive game back when there weren't too many interstate highways.

I believe Harvey Pollack, who was the 66ers PR person, would feed several outlets. I don't know if Pollack or somebody else was the AP stringer. It is sort of the same arrangement that a lot of minor league teams have with newspapers for road and even some home games. If a minor league pitcher was pitching a perfect game, it would cause the same sort of scrambling that happened with Wilt's 100-point game.

 

I think the situation in Minnesota is that hockey is the most important sport by far, and this paper may decide it might be better for them to send a second (or third) guy on the road with the Wild than send anybody out with the Timberwolves.

 

Only the Vikings get the "second (or third) guy on the road" treatment from the undermanned St. Paul paper.

But not having a home&road beat writer on one of the Big 4 sports, if you're pretending to be a daily metro, is undermanning yourself and underserving your readers.

 

The Pioneer Press is on a cold, dark path. It's routinely outperformed by the Star Tribune, and as we've seen in many major cities, there's hardly room for one profitable daily newspaper, let alone two. Seems like it's only a matter of time before it withers, especially if it continues to blow of coverage of its local NBA franchise.

 

A lot of talk here is about how the PP is putting a lot of emphasis on its Minnesota Wild coverage. I realize that across the USA, the NFL, NBA and MLB outdistance the NHL in terms of popularity and interest....is this not the case in the Twin Cities? Is hockey more popular/read/followed than the NBA? Or is the PP a paper that is trying to be the industry leader in hockey coverage in that area?

 

There certainly is more interest in the NHL than the rest of the nation, but I'd say the Vikings and Twins (and Wolves, at least for the first half of the season) draw nearly equal interest. Also, the Strib's Wild beat writer, Michael Russo, does outstanding work, which kind of negates a lot of the what the PP is trying to do.

 

If you're going to tilt your efforts and resources in a specific direction, you'd better own that beat or topic. PP cannot pull that off with Russo presiding as the market's top NHL reporter. It ends up being about what the PP is choosing not to do with NBA coverage, rather than anything remarkable it is doing with NHL coverage or anything else for that matter.

 

Pi Press isn't trying to tilt their coverage or solely focus on the NHL. I believe they had to cut back on their budget and the choice was fairly simple. The money certainly wasn't going to come from the Vikings or Twins so it came down to the Wild and Wolves. There's been more interest in the Wild since they signed Parise/Suter last summer and made the playoffs for the first time in five years. But I think the main reason they stick with the Wild over the Wolves is the Wild are based in St. Paul, not Minneapolis like the the other three pro teams. They have to cover the one St. Paul team as the St. Paul paper.