NBC buys Pro Football Talk

Interesting, to say the least.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-profootballtalk.com15-2009jun15,0,646379.story?track=rss

 

In all seriousness, good for him, he seems like a good guy and I think his site is a hoot. And he obviously got paid something fierce, which is awesome. He gets some shit wrong, but unlike some other BLOGGGGGGERS *cough* the fraud *cough cough* he a.) seems to give a shit about it despite his lack of journalistic training and b.) doesn't seem to revel in the demise of the traditional media.

But Dick Ebersol's proclamations to the contrary aside, I wonder how a site that is now owned by an NFL partner can possibly maintain its outsider status and snark. At some point, whether it be a creative issue or a financial one, this will not end well for Florio. Ebersol will leave and someone else will take over NBC Sports and will decide Florio is a bleed on the bottom line and that there are a million bloggers out there doing this for free and they can get their NFL content without spending a dime. He's going to need that law practice again sooner or later.

It's also a little discouraging that NBCSports.com would rather just buy other sites (Rotoworld) than unearth its own writers and generate its own content. Not surprising, of course, but discouraging.

 

I was always under the impression the NBC had a deal with Sports Illustrated.

 

Florio is lucky he hasn't been sued.

He's starting to pop up on the NFL Network, meaning he's no longer just the weird outsider with a popular web site.

 

Fill me in.

(I'm a Bears fan, so it's not like I usually have any reason to watch pro football for more than 3 weeks a season)

 

Fucking awesome.

 

According to Florio, NBC is not buying the site.

 

http://www.stampedeblue.com/2009/5/14/875206/mike-florio-is-at-it-again

This is just one instance of repeated behavior over the years. There was a reporter he got into it with pretty good with several years back, I think it was a Packers guy. Then there's associating Byron Leftwich with Fat Albert and other fourth-grade stuff. So endearing. But for all of that, you couldn't walk around an NFL press box at 11:30 on a gameday and not see at least one or two laptops with PFT on the screen.

 

You won't see Florio in a pressbox at 11:30 on gameday.

 

Florio is a great guy and I couldn't be happier for him getting a huge payday from his site.

But, it is inevitable that PFT will be toned down considerably as a result. That's unfortunate.