Tag Archives: sports media

Stone clarifies plans: He’s staying with White Sox and Harrelson

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Steve Stone plans to be back with Ken Harrelson and the White Sox next year. Like a marriage, for better or worse.

Less than a week after his comments about Harrelson sparked speculation about his future, Stone clarified his plans Tuesday morning on the Mully and Hanley Show on WSCR-AM 670 in Chicago.

Stone said: ““My plans are very simple. I plan to stay with the Chicago White Sox through this contract and hopefully beyond. Regardless of what you might have read or heard or people speculated on or blogged (about) or anything else, I will be back. It’s 100 percent. Hopefully, as I said, for many years. In looking at it, this is, in my estimation, the best big city in the country.”

It all became an issue because of what Stone said last week on WSCR: “When you have any type of partner in any business, you’re going to have some periods where things are really good, some periods where they’re not so good, some periods where things are frustrating, some periods where they’re exhilarating. I think a baseball season is like that. I think late in the season, you just realize it’s a roller coaster, and it’s not just a roller coaster for the baseball team. It’s a roller coaster for all of us who follow it that closely on a daily basis.”

Stone must have decided it was worth another ride on the rollercoaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joking? White Sox owner Reinsdorf roasts founder of sports talk radio

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Jerry Reinsdorf never has been a fan of sports talk radio. And he has let his good friend Jeff Smulyan know it through the years.

The Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner took the chance to rib Smulyan Saturday at a 25th anniversary celebration for sports talk radio in Chicago. Smulyan received the lifetime achievement award for founding the first sports talk station, WFAN in New York, in 1987.

Reinsdorf appeared in a highly entertaining video. Keep in mind that this event also was billed as a roast. So Reinsdorf’s needle definitely was out. Then again, if you know Reinsdorf, his jokes probably aren’t too far from his true feelings.

Reinsdorf: Congratulations on receiving the award tonight. There’s nothing in the world that could have made me show up for a dinner or anywhere else. You certainly have the undying, lasting envy of every sports owner and athlete in sports as the guy who created sports radio. Before you came along, the only thing we had to deal with was the idiots in the newspapers.  Now you’ve managed to give a microphone to every moron in the world.

But we all do things and you’ve become a very rich man. I doubt you’ll ever be able to get back into sports should you desire to buy a baseball team, because I have good friends.

I do have to give you credit for one thing. Over the years, you’ve asked me for my advice on many, many occasions. I’ve often given it to you, and you’ve never followed it. Yet you’ve been successful. Maybe you are smarter than I thought. Maybe I’m the moron and not the guys you put on the radio.

*******

Earlier, Smulyan, who owned the Seattle Mariners, in the early 90s, told one of his favorite stories. With the situation often proving grim at the Kingdome, the sports talkers took out their rage on the man in charge, Smulyan.

His fellow owners took noticed. They too often found themselves being grilled 24/7 on the new sports talk format.

Smulyan recalled an owner telling him, “I’ve always wondered if there’s a God. Now knowing the guy who invented this format is getting annihilated, I know there’s a God.”

After hearing Reinsdorf’s video, I’m fairly sure he was that owner.

*******

Seriously, Smulyan, the CEO of Emmis Communications, was honored to win the award.

“It’s been a fun time,” Smulyan said. “I’m very proud what FAN has done. I’m very proud of what this format has done. The fact that has meant so much to so many people and made their lives brighter because of things you all do, I want to accept this award (on your behalf).”

It was a great evening. The big winners were the event organizers Bob and Michelle Snyder and the evening’s beneficiary, Parent Heart Watch, a program designed to prevent sudden cardiac arrest in children.

The Snyder’s daughter, Jenny, died from sudden cardiac arrest in 2008. Her parents spoke and presented a moving video to show how Parent Heart Watch is saving lives due to increased awareness.

Well done, Bob and Michelle.

 

 

 

 

Wildcard winner for TBS: Baseball should stay with 1-and-done format

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The early ratings for the baseball playoffs should convince Bud Selig and his pals to keep the one-and-done format for the wildcard teams.

While a best-of-three series might be fairer, opening with two winner-take-all games gave the postseason a high dose of urgency from the first pitch. And it carried over into the weekend.

From TBS:

TBS’s exclusive live doubleheader coverage of Major League Baseball’s first-ever Wild Card presented by Budweiser averaged 4,608,000 total viewers, up 61 percent over last year’s 2,866,000 viewers for the first day of the MLB Postseason. The average 3.0 U.S. household rating for the Wild Card doubleheader was an increase of 58 percent over last year’s 1.9 rating for the first day of the postseason.

Why the big jump? In a 5 or 7-game series, if you miss the first game, so what? There’s more coming.

But a one-gamer with all of its drama and storylines (Will it be Chipper Jones’ last game?), and you’re there.

The format sucked fans in, as TBS’ ratings are up 16 percent for the first three days of the playoffs, increasing from 2.5 to 2.9.

Is one-game for the wildcard winners fair? Probably not. But if I’m MLB, I’m not going to mess with it.

 

 

 

 

Q/A with Sports on Earth execs: Why it isn’t Grantland; Luring Posnanski from SI as signature hire

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Sports on Earth is another Grantland, right?

Like Grantland, SOE features a daily offering of select stories by top writers. It has a similar look. Grantland has Bill Simmons; Sports on Earth has Joe Posnanski. Both are the endless salad bowl when it comes to going long, longer, longest.

Yet Sports on Earth isn’t Grantland.

A veteran scribe put it to me this way: “The Grantland writer will write about his experience getting to the game. The Sports on Earth writer will write on the game.”

OK, that may be stretching it a bit when it comes to Grantland. The site does have quality writing about sports. But it also veers in pop culture and other areas that go beyond the arena.

Sunday, Grantland’s main headlines included posts on Adele, Tim Burton and Liam Neeson. All three couldn’t have been worse Sunday than my fantasy quarterback Cam Newton (you were horrible, Cam), but that’s about it when it comes to sports parallels.

Sports on Earth is just about sports. It will write on Coco Crisp (also had a rough day) getting a poor break on a ball as opposed to Breaking Bad.

SOE, a joint venture between USA Today Sports and MLB Advanced Media, debuted in August. The site features Posnanski, the headliner lured over from Sports Illustrated, Tommy Tomlinson, Gwen Knapp, Dave Kindred, Leigh Montville, Will Leitch, Shaun Powell, Chuck Culpepper, among many others.

With that kind of lineup, the content couldn’t help but be strong. But will it make for a successful site?

And looking to the future, has Sports on Earth secured the domain name for Sports on Mars?

I did a Q/A with SOE general manager Steve Madden and editor Larry Burke.

How did it happen that USA Today and MLB joined forces here?

Steve Madden: The idea for a sports site, and not just a sports site, but one very specific to the best writers on all kinds of sports news, is something that had been discussed on (MLB Advanced Media CEO) Bob Bowman and (MLB.com editor) Dinn Mann. It had percolated along here for a while.

The way the world works, Bob Bowman got to know Tom Beusse (president of USA Today Sports Media Group) because their sons go to school together. They started to kick around ways to work together. It seemed to make sense. BAM has this new technology and USA Today has been aggressive about building a sports destination. It seemed like a good idea to work together to do it.

How do you explain this site?

Larry Burke: I say it is built around great writing. Columns and quick analysis. We do some deeper dives. We’ll do some enterprise writing, like the piece Selena Roberts did on Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong.

We look at it as the idea of less being more. We all aspire to be a news site per se; a place where you come to check scores or headlines. We want to be on the news without a lot of clutter. You’ll find 5, 6, 7 things to read each day, and it’s easy to navigate through it.

We’ll have some surprises. As you develop a relationship with the site, you’ll say, ‘There’s something I didn’t expect to see. I’ll give it a shot because I like what I saw last time.’

You talk about clutter. Is there a feeling that some of these sites are too overwhelming and people stay away? Is this the counter to that idea?

Madden: I’m not sure that’s a counter to that idea. We don’t think people will say, ‘I’m just going to go there and not go to other sports sites.’ It’s just that a lot of sites are a mile wide and in some spots, an inch deep. We think there’s a real value proposition to providing a lot of focus on sports and the sports of the day.

Voices seems to be a key word There are so many voices out there. Talk about the important of having good voices that people want to read.

Burke: The phrase we kicked around a lot was ‘great writing with a point of view.’ Joe brings that unique voice. We looked for writers who didn’t have that quote-unquote take, but were able to step back and look at things in interesting, smart and sometimes different ways. When you’re writing on pieces in the news, there are a lot of choices. We know people have choices. Why would they come to us? How do we get our place in the universe? The bar is set high.

Joe Posnanski had a good job at SI. You must have done a good sales job to get him to come over.

Madden: The only other sales job I did better was on my wife. It wasn’t so much that I needed a big name. I wanted a name people would recognize because of the quality of his work. That’s why Joe has a following. Joe’s work is emblematic of what the best sportswriting can be. It is insightful, analytical. It’s really well done. He makes an emotional connection that’s really, really important. How can you go wrong? The other writers who have come along are also like that.

(Steve was told) Joe’s piece on Steve Sabol was the single best thing he read on that topic. That’s our goal, to deliver the single best piece on that topic. If that’s the goal, then you need to hire people like Joe Posnanski.

What’s your response when people say you want to be another Grantland?

Burke: It seems to come up a lot more outside these walls than inside. I can see why. Structurally, Grantland is a site about great writing existing in a larger entity: ESPN.com. In a simplistic way, you can say we’re the Grantland of USA Today.

I never thought of it that way. I don’t think anyone here did. I personally feel the writing at Grantland is terrific. I feel there are a number of sites and publications that are doing great work. We’re not trying to knock anyone out of the way. We’re trying to pull up a seat at the table. Everyone here felt that there was a place for something like this.

Grantland does more with pop culture.

Madden: There are a couple of differences. They have the latitude to write about pop culture. We decided one of the things that makes us different is that we focus just on sports. Second part of it is the newsiness. Writing off news is pretty important to us.

What are the goals here? What’s reasonable to expect in this market?

Madden: We’ve only just started. One of the things I’m pleased about is the average time spent on the site. It’s 7 1/2 minutes. Because of the way we designed this thing, the central experience is about reading. Now we have an engagement story to tell, which is great.

The other encouraging metric is direct load. People like what they see and they’ve bookmarked it. They’re coming back daily. Those numbers are pointing in the right direction.