NYT's NBA writer leaves for Bleacher Report

[CarlSpackler]

New York Times NBA writer -- pardon me, N.B.A. writer -- Howard Beck is leaving for Bleacher Report.

https://twitter.com/HowardBeckNYT/status/380426917687853056

On the surface it feels a bit like Shelley Long deciding to leave Cheers for a promising career in cinema, but I guess the times really are a-changin'.

 

[21]

Along with Miami's Ethan Skolnick and LA's Kevin Ding. All announced today.

 

[da man]

Apparently, someone's got some bucks to throw around.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I don't think Beck is an especially good NBA writer, and he may be making a poor long-term decision, but Bleacher Report is throwing money at people. Maybe some day I'll look at it.

 

[Versatile]

I don't think Beck is an especially good NBA writer

That's just wildly uninformed.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Michael,

I gotta tell ya, Beck's stuff is pretty good.

 

[Joe Williams]

Beck is solid but I won't quibble with Michael's assessment until I see a few of his slideshow captions.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

So any ideas on if Bleacher Report is going to use these people properly? From what I've read, they've made promises to respectable journalists in the past, only to have them regret making the move.

 

[MeanGreenATO]

Beck talked to Deadspin about his move over there. The comparison between BR and Yahoo! Sports was intriguing.

http://deadspin.com/why-howard-beck-left-the-new-york-times-for-bleacher-re-1349408343@barryap

 

[podunk press]

I don't hate the move at all. Wish him the best.

 

[tmr]

I wonder if they'll change the name or rebrand the NBA portion of the site TurnerSports.com.

 

[playthrough]

I wonder if they'll change the name or rebrand the NBA portion of the site TurnerSports.com.

Excellent question. I won't click on anything under the Bleacher Report banner, even if they're becoming more legit with hires like this. But I (and many on this board) must be in the minority of sports fans who are turned off by the name and BR's origins.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Eh, a lot of people said that about SB Nation too, and now SB Nation does some of the best work out there.

 

[buckweaver]

Eh, a lot of people said that about SB Nation too, and now SB Nation does some of the best work out there.

Even before they started hiring great writers, and even including some of their awful affiliated sites, SB Nation never had the reputation for excruciatingly bad content that Bleacher Report had/has.

 

[Songbird]

Poor Bleacher Report. Forever doomed. Never allowed to rise above its reputation.

 

[JennaLaine]

Bleacher Report has made some pretty nice hires recently. People may still have a negative view on the company, but the bottom line is, BR is paying for quality writers when other media outlets aren't.

 

[Versatile]

Bleacher Report has made some pretty nice hires recently. People may still have a negative view on the company, but the bottom line is, BR is paying for quality writers when other media outlets aren't.

Where did you get that impression?

 

[The Big Ragu]

I wonder if they'll change the name or rebrand the NBA portion of the site TurnerSports.com.

Excellent question. I won't click on anything under the Bleacher Report banner, even if they're becoming more legit with hires like this. But I (and many on this board) must be in the minority of sports fans who are turned off by the name and BR's origins.

It don't care much about the name or its origins. My blocking them has more to do with the crappy content you do get for clicking. When you do a google search and their content-farm crap dominates the first few pages of search results. ... you get conditioned to avoid clicking -- or as I did, to block them. It has nothing to do with their name. It's the waste of your time you do get for clicking.

I don't know if others feel the same way -- they might not, but I suspect the reason BR is trying to shift strategies is that the SEO-get-a-lot-of-meaningless-clicks strategy has run its course. People see their name in their search results and it's a "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. ..." thing.

If that is the case, it is going to be difficult to overcome the bad experience people have already had with their content spam.. It's going to take a lot of really good stuff to overcome that, and if the crap continues to get mixed in with the good stuff, I personally am still going to keep them blocked.

It's not an impossible task. It's kind of like when Samsung products were the cheap, crappy imitation of the better Japanese products. But then Samsung turned itself into a legit name.

 

[Joe Williams]

There's so much media overload on most of the stuff I'm interested in that my rule of thumb now is: If it's not Tweeted as a link by a writer whom I follow, I don't go looking for it. Only get to Yahoo! because of a couple of its writers' Tweets. Same with CBSSports and FoxSports sites and even SI.com. I'll occasionally go to ESPN.com or the leagues' Web sites without that prompting, and specific newspaper sites that don't try to crush me with their paywalls. But that's about it.

Bleacher Report? Never bother with 'em off search results because invariably it's a slide show that I know won't get around to what I'm looking for till the 14th click.

 

[Dyno]

On the Bleacher Report NBA homepage right now, there are no bylines from Beck, Ding or Skolnick. Their featured columnists? Bryan Toporek, a self-described 76ers fan and Mike B., who has a whole long list of favorite athletes on his bio. If B/R expects people to take them seriously, they've got a lot of work to do. I hope Beck, Ding and Skolnick truly know what they've gotten themselves into.