Joe Posnanski gets his own "longform" website

[Steak Snabler]

Add "NBC SportsWorld" to the list:

http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/this-is-sportsworld/

 

[Versatile]

Sounds familiar.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I give it a year.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Sounds familiar.

Sure does.

 

[boundforboston]

Why did you revive the original SoE thread?

 

[Songbird]

Leading off: The Yostian Royals.

http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/better-off-ned/

“But I’ll tell you what makes Ned Yost a great manager: He’s a leader. You look at his energy level. You look at how positive he is every day. You look at how loyal he is to this organization and to his players. The players play for him. That’s what counts. He has a great coaching staff, and he lets them do their jobs. These things matter more than strategy. … Just about any strategy will work if you execute.”

 

[YankeeFan]

Ned brings out the clutch in his players. You can't measure that.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

This guy changes jobs like underwear.

 

[Songbird]

He's into Katy Perry?

"You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHNpusq654 ... (with its 193 million views)

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

His pieces for HardballTalk had been strangely timed and a trifle dull.

 

[Versatile]

I just don't ever visit NBCSports.com. The only people I know who do are only there for Pro Football Talk.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I just don't ever visit NBCSports.com. The only people I know who do are only there for Pro Football Talk.

Yeah, PFT and the less popular offshot versions of it (collegefootballtalk etc...) probably account for a huge percentage of the traffic.

Sports on Earth was a disaster for many reasons despite having crazy levels of talent working for it. I know people in the business who barely knew it existed until it went under.

It's kind of pathetic. NFL rumor site equals tons of traffic. One with guys like Culpepper, Hruby, Pos etc. folds.

 

[Dick Whitman]

This guy changes jobs like underwear.

It's pretty obvious he wants to create something like Simmons's Grantland or Nate Silver's 538.com. I don't even think it's necessarily some ego trip or a copycat thing - a lot of people don't like working for other people. Hell, I'm one of 'em.

 

[Versatile]

He had that at Sports On Earth.

It's tough to imagine his brand returning to where it was pre-Penn State scandal. He was the favorite columnist of much of The Sports Twitter-verse before that.

 

[Dick Whitman]

He had that at Sports On Earth.

It's tough to imagine his brand returning to where it was pre-Penn State scandal. He was the favorite columnist of much of The Sports Twitter-verse before that.

Agreed on all counts.

An interesting case study could be done comparing he and Simmons, and why one reaps millions while the other can't seem to find success trying to take the next step to being his own brand. He's had a bad streak. The Big Red Machine book didn't seem to be particularly well-received, either.

 

[Meatie Pie]

Posnanski has mastered his craft, and his flame burns clear and bright.

Saturating the market with more Longform will lead to an increase in opportunities to publish, but maybe not in overall quality. There will be a lot of good and also lesser pieces finding a home now since they must fill the sites.

With any luck, this one won't descend into SB Nation's all-too-common crutch of the stories being largely about the writer's own experiences reporting the story.

 

[CD Boogie]

He had that at Sports On Earth.

It's tough to imagine his brand returning to where it was pre-Penn State scandal. He was the favorite columnist of much of The Sports Twitter-verse before that.

Agreed on all counts.

An interesting case study could be done comparing he and Simmons, and why one reaps millions while the other can't seem to find success trying to take the next step to being his own brand. He's had a bad streak. The Big Red Machine book didn't seem to be particularly well-received, either.

Simmons sells his own personality, and his podcasts with his friends and his first-person POV in his books are a completely different approach from Posnanski's. It seemed odd for him to leave SI, and he's seemed largely adrift since then. It's been a while since I've read his stuff, but I still think he's a terrific writer.

 

[Steak Snabler]

He had that at Sports On Earth.

It's tough to imagine his brand returning to where it was pre-Penn State scandal. He was the favorite columnist of much of The Sports Twitter-verse before that.

Agreed on all counts.

An interesting case study could be done comparing he and Simmons, and why one reaps millions while the other can't seem to find success trying to take the next step to being his own brand. He's had a bad streak. The Big Red Machine book didn't seem to be particularly well-received, either.

That book was awful. I went into it thinking it was going to include story of how the team was built in the late 60s/early 70s and how it fell apart after free agency. Instead, he chose to focus only on the 1975 season, which has been recounted in 100 other places, and many times better (including in Tom Adelman's The Long Ball).

 

[daemon]

He had that at Sports On Earth.

It's tough to imagine his brand returning to where it was pre-Penn State scandal. He was the favorite columnist of much of The Sports Twitter-verse before that.

Agreed on all counts.

An interesting case study could be done comparing he and Simmons, and why one reaps millions while the other can't seem to find success trying to take the next step to being his own brand. He's had a bad streak. The Big Red Machine book didn't seem to be particularly well-received, either.

I think we're dramatically overstating Posnanski's market reach (popularity) even at its peak. As a rough barometer, consider that Posnanski has ~100,000 Twitter followers and Simmons has ~2.7 million. Posnanski has 1/27th the followers of Simmons. Comparing them makes no sense, because Simmons is in a different stratosphere. Posnanski is an old-school sports writer who happens to be held in high esteem by other sports writers, and that seems to be enough to trick old school editors (MLBAM editors are all former newspaper guys) into thinking that he has a following they can monetize. But the mass appeal just isn't there. I'm not sure any of my sports fan friends (late 20's, early 30's) would know his name other than to say, "Yeah, I think I read something by him once."

Part of Posnanski's lack of appeal is that he never spent enough time in a national, multi-platform role to diversify his reach (and wheelhouse). Sorry, I don't care who wrote it, I'm not going to spend any length of time on a piece on Ned ****ing Yost.

 

[lantaur]

Are readers really clamoring for more longform? Do they really want any longform?