Testy Copy Editors

Our new website is up and running at testycopyeditors.org. This board will be maintained as an archive. Please visit the new site and register. Direct questions to the proprietor, blanp@testycopyeditors.org
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 12:15 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours




Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 10 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Oh, ESPN.com, how I despise you
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 11:47 am 
Offline

Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 741
Location: The Empire State
For putting nearly all your baseball columnists into a paid-subscriber area.

Anyone here at TCE subscribe to this area? Is it worth the dough?

I used to enjoy checking out Jayson Stark's and Peter Gammons' columns every once in a while, but there's only so much time in the day. I'm ambivalent about having to pay to read them.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:56 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 2266
Location: New Jersey
I subscribe because of Rob Neyer.

Yeah, it's extortion, but my baseball experience wouldn't feel complete without him.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:04 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 741
Location: The Empire State
Thanks, Matthew. He's pretty good.

It's been curious to watch the process of ESPN's putting the columnists into the paid-only area. First it was Buster Olney, then Stark, then Gammons. (Don't know where Neyer was in that continuum.) I was actually a bit surprised Gammons wasn't the first one ESPN put into the paid-only area, given his popularity.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:15 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:47 pm
Posts: 1734
Location: Washington
I used to subscribe, until they replaced knowledgeable baseball people like John Sickels with obnoxious mainstream columnists like Olney, Ratto, etc. Neyer is comparatively brilliant but not nearly as leading-edge or influential as he used to be.

And, I happen to know — through people I know who know him — that Neyer is leaving ESPN.com soon.

I rarely look at ESPN.com anymore. MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, Diamond Mind, Baseball Primer, Baseball Cube and a number of other sites have far better content. Most are subscriber-only — or have subscriber-only material as a majority of their content — but you get much more for your money on those sites, in my opinion.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:41 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 741
Location: The Empire State
Hmm, thanks for the recommendations, Wabberjocky. Though I do like Buster Olney's work. He also appears occasionally on a weekly local late-night TV sports-wrapup show called "Mike'd Up" (hosted by Mike Francesa, he of the Mike and the Mad Dog radio show) and is always sharp and informative.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:15 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 2266
Location: New Jersey
Wabberjocky wrote:
And, I happen to know — through people I know who know him — that Neyer is leaving ESPN.com soon.


Thanks for the heads-up. I won't renew my subscription.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:17 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:47 pm
Posts: 1734
Location: Washington
From what I hear, he's getting the John Sickels treatment ... he's fallen out of favor because he's not a loudmouthed newspaper columnist who does a lot of TV and talk radio on the side. (I think that's what's called "synergy" or something.)


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:33 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 2266
Location: New Jersey
Yep, ESPN has definitely decided it wants to be trendy more than informative. Neyer is the one of the few remaining writers who gives them any credibility, and if he's leaving, I am too.

If you want my vote for "Most Insufferable Columnist on Any Subject" (and I don't just mean on ESPN or on baseball), it goes to Jayson Stark. I loathe his writing. I'm not sure he's ever written a column without some variation on the following explanatory device: "The last time the Braves didn't win their division, half their current starting lineup were still in diapers and nobody had even heard of Bill Clinton yet, let alone George W. Bush." Or this one: "Rockies bench coach/humorist John Smith quipped ..."

He uses the same lines again and again and again and gets paid to do it. Lots of columnists are guilty of this but Stark is the worst offender I've seen.

Then there's Page 2. It has its place -- even I, as a Yankees fan, can appreciate guys like Bill Simmons and Jim Caple sometimes -- but its goofy approach is spilling over into the whole of ESPN.com. I'm sure that they know what they're doing from a business perspective -- it's a well-known fact the country is getting dumber by the day -- but they're losing a war they were once winning: the fight to have a sports website regarded as high-quality journalism.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:43 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:47 pm
Posts: 1734
Location: Washington
Exactly. People like Neyer and Sickels aren't frat-boy yahoos who provide comfort food for people's existing opinions ... therefore they don't sell.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:45 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:47 pm
Posts: 1734
Location: Washington
Agree on Stark. Notice that he leans on the same sources time after time. If you read nothing but him, you'd think mediocre outfielder Doug Glanville is the second coming of Mark Twain, Robert Benchley, H.L. Mencken and Will Rogers combined.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 10 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group

What They're Saying




Useful Links