ESPN exec John Walsh on B.S. Report

[stix]

Like when he says he pitched a fantasy column for the Herald in 1994 and they shot it down. Clearly, with the way fantasy sports have exploded, maybe it would've been a decent idea for sports sections to pay a little more attention to fantasy matters than they ever did. Most newspaper people think fantasy sports aren't "legit," but considering it's turned into a massive industry, I think a lot of papers really missed the boat with their customers by totally disregarding fantasy sports.

Each newspaper could open a car wash and a doughnut shop in the parking lot, too. They are legitimate businesses that could be profitable.

Actual sports = news
Fantasy sports = not news

Lots of people play Bingo as well. But unless there's a scam going on, there's no news in it.

Car washes, doughnut shops and bingo don't have anything to do with sports.

Fantasy sports does have a lot to do with sports. Major distinction there. I didn't say "cover" fantasy sports, but I don't see why newspapers can't devote a weekly or bi-weekly column to something that millions of sports fans are interested in. And this is coming from someone who's not really all that into fantasy sports.

Honestly, I really think this another example of the arrogance of newspapers. "Oh, we're above fantasy sports, we don't cover that. It's not real sports." Meanwhile, millions of sports fans suck up that stuff like it's gold. So what's wrong with devoting a little space in your paper to fantasy sports? Again, just because you're changing the way you've always done things and always regarded things doesn't mean it's wrong.

 

[stix]

But shouldn't years of declining circulation have forced newspapers to examine the way they operate and present their product? To maybe start wondering why circulation was declining and how to deal with it?

There's no doubt the economy has been the tipping point to cause massive job cuts. I won't disagree with that. But I find it unfathomable that so many newspapers could sit there and watch circulation decline and not change the way they operate.

The newspaper industry was struggling well before the economy went to ****.

Why are you assuming they didn't? They just didn't go about it in successful ways.

It's actually laughable that Simmons thinks rejecting fantasy sports columns is one way where newspapers failed. Fantasy sports are built for the web. Live scoring, chatting with foes, offering trades, looking up stats, etc. -- newspapers have no chance against this. That's not to say they shouldn't bother with them. But I'm fairly certain newspapers were making a hell of a lot of money until the web cannibalized half their revenues.

I understand your point on how fantasy sports are much more Internet-conducive, but that doesn't mean papers can't devote some space to something that so many sports fans care about.

And maybe I am assuming that newspapers didn't do a whole lot to change their ways, because in my experience, I haven't seen a whole lot of papers trying to change until now, when they're all dying and every change is seemingly a half-assed attempt at "citizen journalism" (like running reader comments on the front page, which I think is just a total joke). I just feel that the newspapers industry got complacent for a long time without feeling the need to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, and now they're paying dearly for it.

For a long time, the newspaper industry was pretty much untouchable. Then the Internet came along, and instead of adapting, too many newspapers scoffed at it as an illegitimate media source. Well, now newspapers all of a sudden are clamoring to get on the Internet bandwagon, and it's too late.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Um, if I'm not mistaken, don't Rotoworld and Yahoo and Sportsline and Baseball HQ and Baseball Prospectus and all the other fantasy sites use newspaper reporting to update player injury information, position battles, etc., etc.?

Or do all those sites have reporters out in the field digging up all that info?

Newspapers ignore fantasy sports? ****. Newspapers are the original fantasy sports Web sites.

All that being said ... I'm not at all against a fantasy sports column once a week in a newspaper sports section.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Fantasy sports does have a lot to do with sports. Major distinction there. I didn't say "cover" fantasy sports, but I don't see why newspapers can't devote a weekly or bi-weekly column to something that millions of sports fans are interested in. And this is coming from someone who's not really all that into fantasy sports.

Honestly, I really think this another example of the arrogance of newspapers. "Oh, we're above fantasy sports, we don't cover that. It's not real sports." Meanwhile, millions of sports fans suck up that stuff like it's gold. So what's wrong with devoting a little space in your paper to fantasy sports? Again, just because you're changing the way you've always done things and always regarded things doesn't mean it's wrong.

There's not a single serious fantasy sports player in the world who would buy a newspaper for a weekly fantasy sports column. That stuff is old news by the time it hits the paper.

 

[JC]

Fantasy sports does have a lot to do with sports. Major distinction there. I didn't say "cover" fantasy sports, but I don't see why newspapers can't devote a weekly or bi-weekly column to something that millions of sports fans are interested in. And this is coming from someone who's not really all that into fantasy sports.

Honestly, I really think this another example of the arrogance of newspapers. "Oh, we're above fantasy sports, we don't cover that. It's not real sports." Meanwhile, millions of sports fans suck up that stuff like it's gold. So what's wrong with devoting a little space in your paper to fantasy sports? Again, just because you're changing the way you've always done things and always regarded things doesn't mean it's wrong.

There's not a single serious fantasy sports player in the world who would buy a newspaper for a weekly fantasy sports column. That stuff is old news by the time it hits the paper.

15 years ago they might have, definitely not now.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Fantasy sports does have a lot to do with sports. Major distinction there. I didn't say "cover" fantasy sports, but I don't see why newspapers can't devote a weekly or bi-weekly column to something that millions of sports fans are interested in. And this is coming from someone who's not really all that into fantasy sports.

Honestly, I really think this another example of the arrogance of newspapers. "Oh, we're above fantasy sports, we don't cover that. It's not real sports." Meanwhile, millions of sports fans suck up that stuff like it's gold. So what's wrong with devoting a little space in your paper to fantasy sports? Again, just because you're changing the way you've always done things and always regarded things doesn't mean it's wrong.

There's not a single serious fantasy sports player in the world who would buy a newspaper for a weekly fantasy sports column. That stuff is old news by the time it hits the paper.

15 years ago they might have, definitely not now.

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

 

[stix]

Um, if I'm not mistaken, don't Rotoworld and Yahoo and Sportsline and Baseball HQ and Baseball Prospectus and all the other fantasy sites use newspaper reporting to update player injury information, position battles, etc., etc.?

Or do all those sites have reporters out in the field digging up all that info?

Newspapers ignore fantasy sports? ****. Newspapers are the original fantasy sports Web sites.

All that being said ... I'm not at all against a fantasy sports column once a week in a newspaper sports section.

I'd agree with that.

 

[buckweaver]

Honestly, I really think this another example of the arrogance of newspapers. "Oh, we're above fantasy sports, we don't cover that. It's not real sports." Meanwhile, millions of sports fans suck up that stuff like it's gold. So what's wrong with devoting a little space in your paper to fantasy sports? Again, just because you're changing the way you've always done things and always regarded things doesn't mean it's wrong.

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 ...

 

[dieditor]

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.

 

[SF_Express]

Um, if I'm not mistaken, don't Rotoworld and Yahoo and Sportsline and Baseball HQ and Baseball Prospectus and all the other fantasy sites use newspaper reporting to update player injury information, position battles, etc., etc.?

Or do all those sites have reporters out in the field digging up all that info?

Newspapers ignore fantasy sports? ****. Newspapers are the original fantasy sports Web sites.

All that being said ... I'm not at all against a fantasy sports column once a week in a newspaper sports section.

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.

 

[SF_Express]

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.

 

[stix]

Honestly, I really think this another example of the arrogance of newspapers. "Oh, we're above fantasy sports, we don't cover that. It's not real sports." Meanwhile, millions of sports fans suck up that stuff like it's gold. So what's wrong with devoting a little space in your paper to fantasy sports? Again, just because you're changing the way you've always done things and always regarded things doesn't mean it's wrong.

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 ...

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.

 

[stix]

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.

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.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

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 **** 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.

 

[Cosmo]

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.

 

[dieditor]

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 **** 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.

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.

 

[Webster]

I listened to the podcast last night on my commute home.

Simmons is trying to be a little more serious with these at times, which is a good turn. He doesn't always have the gravitas to pull it off, but he's a bright guy and I'd rather hear about larger issues relating to sports than what one of his buddies ate for lunch.

I'm not in the business, but I didn't love the discussion on newspapers. It seemed a little too much -- "you didn't recognize my brilliance so no wonder you are failing". For example, maybe his idea on fantasy sports was rejected because it wasn't articulated well -- we have no idea. Walsh raised an interesting point about working at Rolling Stone and how it may relate to the internet generally (and Simmons specifically) -- does the publication grow old with the demographic or do you try to capture people within a certain age range?

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Bill should stay out of the deep end of the pool.

 

[Cosmo]

Simmons had Schreiber on this week for a two part podcast. Listened to the first part. Interesting to hear her take on things and her history with newspapers. Didn't realize she was SE of the NYT at age 33.