P rint media is in trouble. The paradigm shift from traditional media to the Internet has changed the way sports are viewed and covered.
Fans are gravitating toward sports Web sites, and not just ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports, but the print media's Internet outlets such as SportsIllustrated.com, Boston.com and NYTimes.com. While many newspapers are going bankrupt, Web sites are often quite profitable.
The overwhelming majority of media revenues come from advertising, but in 2008, advertising fell 15 to 20 percent in many major newspapers while it rose 10 percent on the Internet. Many advertisers have concluded that newspaper advertising is simply less cost-effective than online advertising. Ad agencies used to project viewership based on newspaper subscriptions. But online, there are hard page counts of traffic to specific sites, and advertisers can implement a pay-per-visitor or pay-per-click ad.
As part of this trend, some prominent print journalists have migrated to higher-paying Web sites. Last Wednesday, I got to speak with Gordon Edes of Yahoo and Tony Massarotti of Boston.com. They are two of the most respected Boston-based sportswriters, and both have shifted from the traditional print media to the Internet in the last year. Massarotti and Edes switched to the Internet for a larger audience and a bigger payday. The A-Rod steroid story was broken by Selena Roberts, a former New York Times sports columnist who moved over to SI.com. Even Internet-hating sportswriters like Jay Mariotti and Murray Chass have found their niche on the Net.
The fact is that Web sites are no longer competing so much with print, but with other sites. ESPN and Yahoo are paying top money for top talent to keep their sites at the top. The Olympics vaulted Yahoo's audience past that of ESPN's. Yahoo has been generating around 24 million views per month compared to 20 million unique ESPN visitors. Both media monsters have shown they're not afraid to spend to be competitive. ESPN bought Rick Reilly from Sports Illustrated with a seven-figure, five-year deal and threw enough money at Bill Simmons to keep him in the sportswriting business. Meanwhile, Yahoo concentrates on maintaining the most popular fantasy sports site on the Web and a proliferation of successful sports blogs, poaching talent from the blogosphere.
With the decline of print media, sports leagues are trying to find other media where they can maximize visibility and fan interest. Marc Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, suggested financing a "beat-writer co-operative" to uphold local coverage of teams. MLB, the NFL and the NBA have coped with the decline of newspapers by embracing new media. All three major sports leagues have their own successful TV channels and Web sites. The NFL Network is starting to struggle financially, but that is a product of its ridiculous cable contract. The NFL does a fantastic job marketing itself and avoiding controversy even though it might be the most drug-riddled and gambled-upon sport. MLB's new cable station has been a success, and baseball's MLB Advanced Media, which streams every game online and provides updates on mobile phones, is not only the greatest gift to baseball fans since Yogi Berra, but it's worth about $5 billion. The NBA has done a great job engaging fans, embracing YouTube.com and fan online voting. Leagues have hired their own reporters, which might be a conflict of interest, but it has nonetheless worked.
Even athletes have embraced new media. Many athletes have begun marketing themselves through their own blogs and Web sites. Some, like Gilbert Arenas and Shaq, do it to maintain an image, while others like Curt Schilling want to communicate directly with their fans.
Unfortunately for newspapers, there's little use in resisting the invisible hand that guides the market. I just hope the Internet can eventually preserve the necessary quality of journalism and hard news and not just coverage of sports and entertainment.
--
Jeremy Greenhouse is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Jeremy.Greenhouse@tufts.edu.
