Clay Travis on the most searched sportswriters

[Simon]

Younger consumers don’t want to read their local columnists. In fact, often, they’re going online specifically so they don’t have to read their local columnists

When the Sporting News bought FanHouse’s traffic, Sporting News editors didn’t even ask to see the numbers put up by FanHouse writers. Let me reiterate this to be clear, they didn’t even look at the data on who was being read before they decided which four writers to bring over as columnists. The lack of objective data-review is mindboggling. Like playing baseball in the days before sabre metrics existed.

http://claytravis.net/wordpress/?p=1339

 

[LongTimeListener]

Headline: "Clay Travis Reports That Clay Travis Needs To Get PAID, Mother****ers!"

Using Reilly's salary as a gauge of online sportswriter worth is like saying every pitcher who is better than Barry Zito deserves to make more than $18 million a year.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Younger consumers (love that phrase for readers, says it all) want to read columnists they've seen on TV. Younger consumers who DO read local columnists, however, might actually, you know BUY the local paper someday.

 

[Boomer7]

Sabre metrics really peaked in 1999, but the concept lost steam when Brett Hull scored that disputed goal.

 

[DanOregon]

I'd never heard of Clay Travis before this thread. I guess I should Google him.

 

[Moderator1]

Clay was on my crew at FanHouse. Great guy. Miss working with him. And everything we posted of his drew good traffic. We were all pretty much amazed he wasn't one of the ones kept in the transition.

 

[slappy4428]

Also the parasite who thought it would be funny to ask Tim Tebow if he's still a virgin..

 

[BYH]

Younger consumers don’t want to read their local columnists. In fact, often, they’re going online specifically so they don’t have to read their local columnists

That's b/c every younger "consumer" thinks he knows more about the team than the local columnist.

 

[hondo]

Clay was on my crew at FanHouse. Great guy. Miss working with him. And everything we posted of his drew good traffic. We were all pretty much amazed he wasn't one of the ones kept in the transition.

Except he's convinced he's the best writer ever and his stuff doesn't stink. Aside from an ego as massive as the Grand Canyon, he's all right.

 

[LanceyHoward]

Travis's post is obviously self-promoting. But I think in today's economic environment any sports journalist who passes on a chance to build his brand name is a troglodyte, so my comment is offered as praise.

I agree with his larger point that sports writing will eventually become driven by metrics. For example, if I was ESPN management I might think about pushing Forde up to the home page rather than Wojciechowski based upon the number of hits each receives.

 

[DanOregon]

I'm always surprised how little time I spend on ESPN.com. Usually chock full of previews of stuff airing on ESPN, off-field stuff about players injuries etc. on the front page - but nothing really newsy.
I tend to spend more time with SI columnists (King, Mandel, JoPo), I dig Wetzel, and I'll sometimes pick something off of Real Clear Sports.

 

[Versatile]

Travis has a good premise, but including himself made him seem like a whiny brat. And, while he's very talented, he's always come across as a whiny brat. So that makes sense.

 

[TigerVols]

Clay was on my crew at FanHouse. Great guy. Miss working with him. And everything we posted of his drew good traffic. We were all pretty much amazed he wasn't one of the ones kept in the transition.

The transition overlords must be Bammer fans. Go Vols!

 

[Jake_Taylor]

Your terms - (Jake_Taylor's real name) - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.

:'( :'(

 

[daemon]

The fact that Clay Travis is more searched than someone like Dan Wetzel could mean:

1) Clay Travis is a more popular writer than Dan Wetzel.

Or, it could mean. . .

1) Clay Travis' stuff is harder to find through traditional channels, like logging on to the main page of his web site, or following a link via twitter or blog.

2) Clay Travis attracts a transient following that does not bother to bookmark his page for repeated viewing.

3) Fewer people read Fanhouse.com than read Yahoo.com, increasing the pool of people who are likely to access his stuff through a Google Search.

4) Clay Travis does dumb **** like ask Tim Tebow if he is a virgin, resulting in a huge one-time spikes in Google searches that don't really tell the powers-that-be much about his true market penetration.

5) Clay Travis Googles himself more than any other writer.

 

[LongTimeListener]

5) Clay Travis Googles himself more than any other writer.

If you are using "Google" as a euphemism for something else, I wholeheartedly vote for #5.

 

[Azrael]

http://www.google.com/trends?q=james+joyce

http://www.google.com/trends?q=james+patterson&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

 

[Diego Marquez]

You mean Clay Travis is a sports writer and not a country singer? Thank you, Google.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

If Clay Travis were a tree in Alabama, a Tide fan would poison his roots.

And he'd be the most famous and most-searched tree in Alabama.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Your terms - (Jake_Taylor's real name) - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.

:'( :'(

Yeah, it's a sad song. I'll have to try again, during my high season.