Read Sports Geek’s argument that the New York Giants wide receiver battle is the year’s best training camp battle and Bleacher Fan’s argument that the Browns quarterback situation is the most fascinating battle looming in training camp .
Guys and gals, we hope you have enjoyed this week’s round of debates. We’ve enjoyed bringing them to you. As you can tell by our topics this week, the three of us are very excited about the upcoming football season, both professional and college football. Yes, we all love baseball. We also all support three different teams passionately, which makes for interesting behind the scenes chatter. But, nothing gets our juices flowing like those fall weekends!
Today, we are discussing which training camp battle promises to be the most intriguing. After some deep thought (yes, I go there occasionally), I have decided that the quarterback battle up in Detroit between rookie Matthew Stafford and veteran Daunte Culpepper is the league’s best.
Let’s recap the situation if you are not familiar. Stafford, of course, was the number one pick in this year’s draft. He played his college ball at the University of Georgia. Prior to being drafted, he agreed to a six year deal worth up to $78 million – with $41.7 million being guaranteed. (Whether or not NFL draft picks receive too much money is definitely a debate we will look at in the future.)Scouts are mixed on him, and there’s actually some question as to who will be a better NFL quarterback. Will it be Stafford or New York Jets first round pick Mark Sanchez? Stafford, without a doubt, has a cannon for an arm. It’s something that allowed him to get away with suspect footwork and inconsistent accuracy in college. That’s not going to happen in the NFL. Nonetheless, he is the future of the Detroit Lions organization and quite possibly the present.
Culpepper played for the Lions last year after signing with them mid-season. He suffered a shoulder injury that cut short his season, but he appears ready to go in 2009. Culpepper is a former star quarterback, having made the Pro Bowl three times earlier this decade with the Minnesota Vikings. Unfortunately, injuries derailed his career and he has been floating around the past few years (with a mini-retirement mixed in at the beginning of the 2008 season.) He’s thrown for over 23,000 yards in his career, so there’s no doubting his past credentials. But, he’d be the first one to tell you he is not what he was in his prime with the Vikings.
This also is not really going to be a dirty battle. Both guys appear to get along. Both are saying all the right things in public. Stafford has put in the work over the summer, but then again, so has Culpepper. Let’s face it… a lot of things are up for grabs with the Lions. Coming off a winless season, no one’s job is really safe. With a new coach in Jim Schwartz, everyone is essentially going to starting fresh.
I know this is off the radar a little. The only reason this battle would get any attention is because of Stafford’s status as a number one pick. What Detroit is going to have to decide is do they want to throw Stafford right into the fire and learn on the fly with a bad team (like Indianapolis did with Peyton Manning) or do they want him learning behind an experienced veteran like Culpepper? No matter what, it will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Read Bleacher Fan’s argument that the Cleveland Browns quarterback battle is the best this NFL training camp season and Loyal Homer’s argument that the best is the Detroit Lions quarterback battle.
Position battles in training camp are always compelling for the sports geek’s of the world. Whose technique is the best? Who has the most upside? Who sucks in practice but is a gamer? We love these types of questions.
Nowhere in the NFL are these questions more compelling than in Albany, New York for the New York Giants training camp, most apparently at the wide receiver position.
Aging veteran wide receiver Amani Toomer is no longer with the team, and star receiver Plaxico Burress really shot himself in the foot (well, the leg to be more precise) by getting into legal trouble. That leaves a LOT of players battling for a premier position in the most popular professional league in the country, on one of the most popular teams, in the biggest town in sports.
We do not get into predictions here at The Sports Debates (For good reason – who could have predicted Loyal Homer would have stayed up late last night baking cookies? Not me.). Each of these receivers needs a spot and has a valuable role to play. If I’m the Giants coach, this is how I break down the players abilities and begin defining roles at the start of training camp.
Nicks is my starter at the number one receiver position. He’s a first round draft pick with enormous talent and upside. While not tall like a typical number one receiver, his 6-foot 1-inch frame holds a strong 215 pounds, and he showed the capacity in college to wrestle catches away from defenders. He will need to prove he can run effective routes and block to nail the position down. But, it is there for the taking, and Nicks, though unproven, has the most raw talent in the group.
My number two receiver at the opening of camp is Steve Smith. Smith failed to break out until very late last season, grabbing only one touchdown catch on 574 yards receiving. While not quite six feet tall, Smith has shown a willingness to go across the middle and run the tough routes that are sure to glean tough hits. His speed is a bonus on the wing, allowing the field to stretch and more room to open up for the effective running game and short outlet passes that the Giants offense has always run with success.
My number three receiver going into camp is Sinorice Moss. Moss is a speedster who can get behind the defense, opening up underneath routes for Smith and running back Brandon Jacobs.
The three-way combination of speed at the receiver position forces defense to play on their heels and opens up the underneath game for quarter Eli Manning because the field is stretched.
Hixon, who had the opportunity to break out last season when Burress went down with his self-inflicted issues, dropped big passes on key plays. Until Hixon proves he can handle the offense beyond the routine demands of the position, he is not ready for the limelight in New York. It’s best to use him in spots right now where he can be effective and give him the opportunity to prove his value, rather than be thrust into a star position before he has paid his dues and is ready.
Read Sports Geek and Loyal Homer’s arguments on which position battles they feel will be the most interesting during the 2009 NFL preseason.
I feel like I’m stuck in line at Epcot right now, just having stepped off of the ‘Spaceship Earth’ ride where I’ve taken a journey through time, and am waiting to step into ‘Project Tomorrow!’
That’s what life has been like for a Cleveland Browns fan ever since their return to the league in 1999. The Cleveland faithful have been shown pictures and told stories of the franchise’s past, and they have been promised about the excitement that the future will bring, but for this moment? They are stuck in some sort of limbo, just waiting for the future to arrive.
Browns fans are upset, and with good reason! Things have already started off poorly for the Dawgs in 2009. Following an abysmal close to the 2008 season, the Browns once again have gone back to the drawing board beginning with team owner Randy Lerner’s purge of the front office. He fired general manager Phil Savage and head coach Romeo Crennel, replacing them with George Kokinis and Eric Mangini, who officially becomes the fifth head coach for the Browns since their return, ushering in yet ANOTHER era of “rebuilding” for the city on the banks of Lake Erie.
“Mangenius” and the Browns have also fallen victim again to the alleged “Cleveland Curse” by losing wide receiver Donte Stallworth to a DUI manslaughter charge. Recently another wide receiver, Braylon Edwards, was also placed on the non-football injury list… and the hits just keep on coming (without even taking the field)!
More frustrating is the lack of any stability at the quarterback position. For a city that once proudly boasted the names of Otto Graham, Brian Sipe, and Bernie Kosar, 2009 will mark the beginning of yet another quarterback controversy. In fact, the Browns quarterback position has been so inconsistent and unstable that 14 different players have started at least one game at the position since 1999. A position, need I remind you, that is supposed to be manned by the on-field leader of the team.
So, why on earth do I feel that the Browns QB position battle will be the one to watch this year? I’ll give you two reasons.
First, it is really the only exciting thing worth watching if you are a Browns fan.
Second, it will finally allow the Cleveland organization and its fans an opportunity to put a face to the franchise.
When you think about the teams in football that have consistently performed well over the past decade, the one thing they have all had in common is stability and solid leadership from the quarterback position. You can look no further than the New England Patriots and Tom Brady, the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning, or the Pittsburgh Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger as proof.
That has been the missing piece for Cleveland, but the Browns are FINALLY in a position where they can place the hopes of their franchise on the shoulders of a quarterback who may actually be able to take the reins of a franchise and be the leader for the foreseeable future.
This isn’t the same quarterback controversy that Browns fans have known for the past 10 years. The team isn’t choosing between Trent Dilfer and Charlie Frye, or Tim Couch and Kelly Holcomb. Rather than being forced to take gambles between arguably substandard talent or a “veteran” who is likely on their last legs, the Browns finally have an opportunity to choose between two quarterbacks who (on paper at least) appear to both be capable of successfully leading the team for many years to come.
On one hand you have Derek Anderson. Despite a dreadful 2008 performance, Anderson is a Pro Bowl quarterback with tremendous arm strength. In his defense, many of Anderson’s woes last year can be blamed on downright pathetic receiving (that includes YOU, Braylon) and injury problems. Sure, there are questions that Anderson will need to answer – specifically around his accuracy – but he has nonetheless proven that he can succeed on the field.
On the other hand you have Brady Quinn. Quinn came in as a very highly touted rookie quarterback having led Notre Dame to a BCS appearance during his final year before being drafted in the first round by the Browns. Quinn was instantly labeled as the “quarterback of the future” for the Browns, but due to the surprising success of Anderson (and the entire Browns team) in 2007, followed by injury problems in 2008, many people still feel that Quinn is untested and unproven. When healthy Quinn has been able to demonstrate his natural talent as a passer causing many in “Believe-land” to still expect Quinn to be the man lining up behind center.
While there are doubts about both (otherwise there wouldn’t be a position battle, obviously), each has shown the potential to be a “franchise” quarterback. I think it is safe to assume that whoever Mangini chooses to take the field in September will be the quarterback of the Browns for many years to come. As for the “other guy?” My guess is that he’ll be suiting up in different colors.
Cheesy-Voiced Radio Announcer: “We last left Bleacher Fan just before revealing the future observed from gazing into a crystal ball. Let’s see check back in to see what the future holds for our debaters…”
Bleacher Fan (in an airy and mysterious voice): I see the winner of this debate, and it is… SPORTS GEEK!
But wait, that’s not all I see… there’s more to this premonition… Loyal Homer, next week you will begin to panic because you think you lost your Hello-Kitty backpack. Don’t worry… it will be right behind the sofa, where you dropped it after you started singing your favorite Miley Cyrus song as it plays on the radio tomorrow afternoon! It has been foretold!
Obviously, no one can gaze into a crystal ball and predict the future. That doesn’t mean, though, that people should not try. Speculation is part of what makes being a sports fan so much fun! Between friendly wagers with your buddies, office brackets, and pre-season polls, everyone tries to play “know-it-all” for the chance of making it look like YOU are the expert and YOU know what you are talking about.
At first, I was in complete agreement with Loyal Homer. In all reality, no one can measure future statistics and no one can predict injuries. The best gauge that a pollster has in evaluating talent is to measure and interpret what they see in the present. To be frank, Loyal Homer made one comment that I just couldn’t agree with, no matter how much I tried. That comment was regarding the 2008 Georgia Bulldogs.
Loyal Homer argues that the Georgia Bulldogs were a very deserving #1 team in the pre-season, despite the fact that Georgia was rarely mentioned in BCS talks. Due to a schedule which included some difficult matchups, Loyal Homer argues that very few expected the Bulldogs to finish the year as champions.
I just can’t buy that argument. How can a pollster in one breath say that Georgia is the best team in football, then in the other say that they won’t make it through their schedule? Isn’t the best team SUPPOSED to be the best BECAUSE they can beat all the other teams? Look at the Florida Gators, who had an equally difficult schedule, yet somehow managed to defeat LSU, Georgia, Florida State, South Carolina, and even defeated the then-ranked #1 teams Alabama AND Oklahoma in back-to-back games, on their way to winning the national championship.
I understand that it is difficult to choose which one team out of 119 will be the single champion every year, but I cannot agree with a statement that sets a team up to be the BEST in football, then closes by questioning that team’s ability to win games. By selecting Georgia as the best team in the nation during the pre-season, the implication is that they have a strong likelihood of surviving their schedule, no matter how daunting it is. If the pollsters didn’t think Georgia could get through their schedule, then they obviously were NOT the best team.
What ultimately clinched the ‘W’ for Sports Geek was the point that skillful pollsters can gauge the current climate of the football season and successfully apply that towards a forecast of how the season will play out.
I don’t think I would go as far as Sports Geek in saying that the voters need to “put a stake in the ground” or otherwise appear “gutless.” The uncertainty of the future has to allow for some flexibility in the voting process. Otherwise, the polls would never change, because a hard and fast ranking would be established during the pre-season. By declaring that the pre-season poll was a “statement” of who the best WILL be, the pollsters would essentially be choosing the National Championship matchup before the season even began, defeating the purpose of actually playing the season out.
While Sports Geek keenly recognizes that the “good” voters can forecast season results with some level of accuracy, there is still a day-to-day nature embedded within the game which must be accounted for.
Last, before I forget, the crystal ball has also shown me that Sports Geek will have “bad dreams” after watching Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, and will therefore have to sleep at night with the lights on… IT HAS BEEN FORETOLD!!!
Guys and gals, when we starting talking about pre-season polls, you know college football season is approaching.
Bleacher Fan poses an interesting question for us. Basically, I must get into the mind of a college football pollster and decide what the best mind frame is when constructing a pre-season poll. Should a pollster vote with the end of the season in mind, or should they vote based on how good they think a team will be at the beginning of the season? Without a doubt, the pollster should vote based on the beginning of the season.
Bleacher Fan alluded to this in the intro, but I want to take it a step further. Georgia was the pre-season number one team last year, and with good reason. They returned pre-season Heisman contenders in quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Knoshown Moreno. Georgia ended the previous season by whipping a hapless Hawaii team 41-10 in the Sugar Bowl. Coming off the season they had in 2007, Georgia deserved to be ranked number one during the pre-season. The consensus was that it would be extremely difficult for Georgia to finish the season as champions. When prognosticators were giving their BCS Championship predictions last July, Georgia was rarely mentioned. Why, you ask? Because the schedule was absolutely daunting! Road trips to South Carolina, Arizona State, LSU, and Auburn added to home games against Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia Tech. Not to mention the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party down in Jacksonville against the mighty Florida Gators (politically correct or not, that’s what everyone in the South still calls it). That still leaves out a possible SEC championship game. Looking at that schedule before the season, most folks outside of Athens – and even some of in Athens – agreed that it was going to be extremely difficult to finish number one. But, going into the season, based on how they finished the previous season and who they had returning, Georgia was a very deserving number one in the pre-season.
As Bleacher Fan said, circumstances often come up that change how the best football team is determined, or even how a mid-level team is perceived. Maybe injuries pop up. Maybe the quarterback gets kicked off the team for not “earning” his money at his “job” (see Rhett Bomar). Maybe a star player gets a DUI and his playing status is thrown into question (see Mississippi State running back Anthony Dixon). These things are absolutely impossible to predict. There’s just no way. If a pollster really knows for certain who is going to be number one at the end of the season, please send them to my home. I’d love to have a chat with them. I’ll even give them a dollar to go buy me a lottery ticket. As my father likes to say, “I don’t have to win the lottery but one time, you know!
I also like to know that if my team finishes the previous season well, I’ve got a pretty good chance to see them in the pre-season rankings. It seems like every year Clemson would be ranked in the pre-season thanks to a strong late season push. But, that would be followed by a mediocre start to the next season (sorry, Sports Geek!). At least they had the pre-season polls to look forward to every year.
The bottom line is that pollsters should vote based on the here and now. They can’t read into the future, no matter how smart they think they are. There’s no sense in even trying!
Read the debate intro and Loyal Homer’s argument that pre-season polls should only reflect the best teams at the time the poll is conducted.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. But, there should NOT be more than one way to design a pre-season college football poll. While some pollsters simply use their poll to drum up hype and skirt relevance with a poll that is only valid for a week (if they’re lucky), good pollsters take the opportunity to research and put some thought into a forecast. The best approach for developing an interesting pre-season poll is to put a stake in the ground and predict what the college football landscape will look like at year’s end, not in a week from now. Good pollsters are capable of making a statement. The only way to make a statement is with a pre-season poll that forecasts the college football season.
Let’s look to history as a guide. Let’s examine the last 10 years of the AP Poll, from 1998 through 2008. I’m using the AP poll because it is actually a well constructed poll with voters who take their responsibilities seriously… and have since 1936, when the writers first got it right in naming Minnesota national champs.
Okay, let’s see which programs the AP ranked at the top of the poll for the pre-season, and then how that team finished the season. This should give good insight and reveal if it is even possible for a poll to be a good forecasting tool.
1998: Pre-season #1 was Ohio State, final poll #1 was Tennessee (OSU #2)
1999: Pre-season #1 was FSU, final poll #1 was FSU
2000: Pre-season #1 was Nebraska, final poll #1 was Oklahoma
2001: Pre-season #1 was Florida (Miami #2 despite receiving more first place votes), final poll #1 was Miami
2002: Pre-season #1 was Miami, final poll #1 was Ohio State (Miami #2)
2003: Pre-season #1 was Oklahoma, final poll #1 was USC (OU #3)
2004: Pre-season #1 was USC, final poll #1 was USC
2005: Pre-season #1 was USC, final poll #1 was Texas (USC #2)
2006: Pre-season #1 was Ohio State, final poll #1 was Florida (Ohio State #2)
2007: Pre-season #1 was USC (LSU #2) , final poll #1 was LSU
2008: Pre-season #1 was Georgia, final poll #1 was Florida
Despite voters having to keep up with an fast and ever-changing sport, the Associated Press pre-season poll actually did an excellent job of forecasting the season’s best team, getting it right two times and coming within one place in the rankings on six other occasions. So, the AP poll correctly forecasts one of the top two teams in college football 80 percent of the time in the last ten seasons. That’s pretty good, especially when considering how college football always comes down to the wire. That’s smart polling and statement making. The BCS should be so lucky.
Approaching a pre-season poll as a forecast is interesting and a statement that is worthy of respect. Approaching the pre-season poll as a tool for adding to the already overabundance of hype and noise in the sports marketplace is needless and annoying. And gutless.
No matter how a person feels about the psychological approach to the pre-season poll, I think we can all agree that picking just ONE universal approach is ideal. It’s clear that it is possible for a group of writers or college football experts to make good decisions during the pre-season and accurately forecast the best teams before a season begins. If that capability is demonstrated, a unified approach that hones the collective forecasting skills only makes college football better and more interesting to follow throughout the year. It adds yet another dimension to college football and reinforces why it is such a compelling sport to watch year in and year out.
Read Sports Geek’s argument that a pre-season poll should forecast how the season will end and Loyal Homer’s argument that it should provide a real-time snapshot of the best teams in college football.
Football is just around the corner. As we wait with bated breath for the release of the college football preseason top 25 rankings, questions abound regarding where the each team will fall.
Florida is a likely candidate for the number one spot, but what about Texas, or Oklahoma? Where does the Pac-10 or the Big Ten come into the equation? How do you rank Southern Cal and Ohio State when they will be playing each other early in September?
With all the speculation swirling around, it makes me wonder how to interpret the pre-season polls once they are released. For example, if Florida does in fact receive the number one ranking, does that mean that the pollsters feel that the Gators are pre-season favorites to win the BCS National Championship, or does it mean that they are just ranked as the best team TODAY, and we’ll have to wait and see if they still are the best team tomorrow?
For the 2008 season, Georgia was named the pre-season number one team, but they finished the season without even making a BCS appearance, instead facing Michigan State in the Capital One Bowl. Does that mean the pollsters were wrong when they filled out their pre-season ballots, or were the Bulldogs in fact the best team in the country at the time of the polling?
In fairness, no one possesses the clairvoyance of Carnac the Magnificent, so predicting the future is impossible. Does that mean that the pollsters get a bye if their preseason pick for number one loses the first three games of the season?
It is for this reason that I look to my esteemed colleagues for assistance.
What is the better philosophy to employ when a developing a college football pre-season poll?
Obviously these are consensus polls, so opinions will differ from one voter to the next. However, shouldn’t the general principle on who to vote for be the same, regardless of the person voting?
With that thought in mind, Sports Geek will argue that the best philosophy when constructing a pre-season poll is to rank the teams in order of which is most likely to win the National Championship. After all, isn’t that who the number one team is at the end of the season?
On the other hand, Loyal Homer will argue that the best philosophy is to vote based on the current state of the teams. Rather than attempt prognostication, a pollster should rank the teams based solely on who they feel the best team is TODAY, understanding that circumstances arise which may change the status of who the best team is TOMORROW.
Let’s face it, as ESPN has grown over the past two plus decades it has becomes fashionable to bash them on the Internet. Fan expectations, and criticism, have grown in lockstep with the family of networks and various media distribution channels. It is easy to find fault with reporting decisions and the content ESPN generates (outside of actual sporting event coverage).
This was a difficult verdict to sit down and write because I was looking for a way to shoe-horn my general lack of respect for the way ESPN reports into my commentary. But, while the ESPN filter is prominent in all of its reporting, the responsibility falls to the fan to navigate around it and glean good bits of information. The ability/willingness of the fan to actually do that is a debate unto itself.
That said, a couple of things do make me feel uncomfortable about ESPN. First, the advertising dollars and reporting decisions are uncomfortably close to each other. Like church and state, those two things should remain separate. When content becomes influenced by advertising dollars and business growth objectives, any sense of journalistic integrity flies out the window. The close proximity of advertising dollars to reporting decisions calls content decisions into question (e.g. “Chicago is an important market, do we need to run this negative story about a highly influential member of the Chicago sports community?”).
It is easy to look at ESPN’s decision to move into local market reporting superficially. That is, these markets make sense for ESPN the business, not Joe the Chicago sports fan. ESPN is creating a de facto wire service to create even more potential content for their national distribution channels, and it’s easy to call into question their willingness to let a market with lots of eyeballs and key demographics get a story over a piece of true journalism like what Yahoo! Sports has done with the strange death of a high school football star in Mississippi. (At press time, ESPN has not touched on this developing story yet.)
The only real element of ESPN’s content line up that involves good journalism and reporting is Outside The Lines, but it’s buried is weird time slots. But, like I said, it’s easy to criticize the way ESPN goes about the business of journalism and sports reporting.
Despite the obvious opportunity to criticize ESPN, this debate victory goes to Bleacher Fan. Whether we’re talking about a sporting event or the business of sports content, competition is good, it makes everyone better (unless it’s a quarterback controversy in Cleveland, it seems). A fan having another source to get sports information from is a positive outcome of ESPN’s new initiative and a good thing for Joe, the Chicago sports fan. If Joe does not like the way ESPN Chicago is reporting local news or they fail to cover his favorite high school team, Joe has other resources he can get his news from.
In fact, ESPN’s reporting and information will have to be buttoned up more than ever, as they will actually encounter something they have not encountered since they first began more than two decades ago: competition. The current local market reporting landscape is a tough nut to crack for a newcomer – even for an organization like ESPN. As Loyal Homer points out, the local reporters are already well embedded and sourced. ESPN will have to work and out-hustle to get good stories, and it will not have the luxury of burning a bridge that a powerful national organization might. It’s an interesting experiment that all fans should hold ESPN accountable for executing with integrity as a primary cornerstone of the business strategy.
Listen, I am as big a fan of ESPN as anyone I know. Yes, like everyone else, I get tired of the overkill stories on people like Brett Favre and Michael Vick. I still watch a significant amount of ESPN. I’d hate to even give you a number stating the amount of hours a week I watch ESPN. But, this is where I draw the line.
In Sports Geek’s intro, the question is about ESPN being a viable source for local market sports coverage. I answer that question by simply saying that ESPN needs to stay out of it!
ESPN does a great job of covering a wide variety of sports from various different angles. For example, I read the USA Today every day at lunch to get a broad variety of sports news. I can read about the latest involving Favre, Vick, or Michael Phelps. It’s basically general information, but it satisfies my need for “national” sports news.
However, as a Georgia resident, I like to read and hear about Georgia sports through in-state media and reporters. As Sports Geek stated, ESPN is branching out into major cities, and if the trend continues they could be setting up shop in Atlanta. This would be a terrible idea. Much like I read the USA Today for national sports news, I read the Atlanta Journal Constitution every day online for “local” sports news. I read columns/blogs every day by featured columnists such as Mark Bradley (who follows us on Twitter), Jeff Schultz, Tony Barnhardt, and David O’Brien. O’Brien is the Atlanta Braves’ beat writer and he writes a daily blog online. He is able to report things that an ESPN reporter couldn’t talk about. DOB (as he is referred to online) has established relationships with the players and coaches and is able to talk about things like the “mood” of the clubhouse. He also has inside information on injuries. An ESPN reporter could establish these sources over time and be on the same level eventually, but that serves no purpose to me right now.
I also think, eventually, that if ESPN keeps branching out fan will have a lot of “watered down” coverage. I think ESPN already runs the risk of overkill with its family of networks. I mean, really, how many channels are on cable/satellite now? Not to mention ESPN Radio and all of its affiliates.
MEMO TO ESPN: If we want to find you, we have plenty of avenues to find you. We have a remote and a radio dial. Do not invade our territory and find us!
Again, I’m not trying to throw ESPN under the bus. I am a supporter of ESPN. But leave my local coverage alone. Don’t invade that territory!
Read the debate intro and Loyal Homer’s argument that a national sports media outlet such as ESPN has no business in reporting on “local” sports topics.
I am sorry I did not get this article written sooner. I was busy getting on the local news from Channel 3 (WKYC), the NBC affiliate in Cleveland.
After I write this, I’ll be checking out ESPN Radio Cleveland, because I like what their experts have to say on the Cleveland sports issues of the day!
Let’s face it – we get ALL of our local entertainment filtered down to us from major, national outlets. Whether it’s our television (broadcast on local NBC, CBS, FOX, or ABC affiliates), our music (which includes the national Clear Channel radio network), or our sports (such as ESPN Radio affiliates and ), EVERYTHING is centralized!
If that as the case for every other mainstream entertainment platform, why should I (or anyone, for that matter) take issue with ESPN making an attempt to provide more specific, localized sports reporting that would include high school and college sports news, in major cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles?
On the contrary, I think this is actually a very positive opportunity for all the parties involved.
ESPN – who is in no way the first (nor will they be the last) to try this – can actually improve their ability to report sports on a national level, because they will be developing much stronger “local” ties within those major markets. When a potentially interesting “local” story breaks out in Chicago, ESPN can leverage their local ties to improve their accuracy and speed in how they report the story.
ESPN can also help raise the quality of local sports reporting. Let’s not forget that ESPN is owned by the Walt Disney Company, the parent company for the same ABC network that ALREADY reports locally for each of these markets via their television affiliates. As ESPN (under the Disney umbrella) ventures into local market reporting, they will most likely do so by leveraging the networks already established through those local affiliates.
In a worst case scenario, ESPN would change nothing except the name, while the product would remain exactly the same. However, there is a strong likelihood that many organizations and institutions within each locality may be willing to provide greater access to information, because of the credibility implied from the name “ESPN.” In that case, local sports fans would soon find that they were receiving more in-depth reporting than they had previously received. It would potentially be more accurate, and more timely.
To further validate ESPN’s plan, this strategy of repackaging a product which already exists in the marketplace has been used successfully by many businesses worldwide.
Remember the Firestone Wilderness AT tire accidents of several years ago? These tires were found to be the cause of many fatal car accidents, and the Bridgestone-Firestone organization potentially could have gone out of business as a result of the backlash from the public.
How did Bridgestone-Firestone respond? They recalled the tires, repackaged their product, emphasized the “Bridgestone” brand, and continued to be a successful operation, despite the fact that consumers were still essentially buying “Firestone” tires.
As for the local sports organizations, such as minor-league, college, and high school squads, they stand only to benefit from this partnership. Attaching the letters “ESPN” to the name of the media outlet covering a local story brings credibility AND exposure into a market that otherwise would not receive that kind of respect.
When sports fans hear “ESPN” they automatically pay more attention. Did it hurt LeBron James, OR his high school St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio, when they partnered with bigger media outlets to showcase James’ prodigious talents? Of course not! Instead, as a result of the increased exposure for James AND the high school, one former alumnus of the school felt compelled to make a $10M donation to the school. In addition, the school leveraged their new-found publicity and made a deal with Time Warner Cable to broadcast their home basketball games (featuring James) on pay-per-view at $7.95 each. That partnership earned the school an additional $400,000 in revenue, all of which was generated because a local story became a national one!
With greater access to those large media outlets, many municipalities stand to benefit in a similar manner because greater exposure and notoriety can help build a larger customer base, as well as help with recruiting and advertising. I’m sure that no one at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School could have anticipated that kids in California would want a #23 jersey from an Akron, Ohio high school!
And the best part of all is that ESPN is only looking to provide fans with another option in sports reporting. If you as a sports fan don’t like what ESPN has to say, then I’m sure you can find some other nationally based media outlet to get your “local” news from!
And we're back... Should college coaches look into criminal and juvenile records when recruiting? The verdict says YES! http://bit.ly/dZ5LF310 months ago
Posted by Loyal Homer 
