Key tweets, and it's all gone to Hell.

[JohnFSilver]

As a former neighborhood news carrier for the Courant in the morning and JI in the afternoon during middle school and HS, let me ask you this.
How did JI decide to cut up space in the sports section for how much print each section got and what was the process for determining which ads went in which sections and how much the JI would charge for ads based on location?
It's been about 40 years since I last slung the JI around and I may still having lingering trauma from the Thanksgiving Day edition of the JI.

Thank you for your service!

It wasn’t brain surgery. Sports editors would plan ahead and make a space request. The managing editor and publisher decided the size of paper and what pages each section gets.

As far as ads. Sports is a popular section of the paper so car dealerships loved being in our section. We would sacrifice news for an ad any day of the week.

Day before print, we would get how many pages and how many ads there were. We’d worn around them.

Thanksgiving Day was awesome. I became the second man on road race coverage in my later years. One of my favorite events to cover. My family hated me though. Always screwed up dinner.

 

[Kolumbo]

No that isn’t it. Lol.

I think we can all agree that espn played a major role in destroying the Big East, however way you want to call it. Has there been one news article written and published by espn placing blame on espn? That was and continues to be a major news event. How has espn the great news center reported it?

 

[JohnFSilver]

I think we can all agree that espn played a major role in destroying the Big East, however way you want to call it. Has there been one news article written and published by espn placing blame on espn? That was and continues to be a major news event. How has espn the great news center reported it?

Blame? No one forced schools to get greedy. There was no need for these huge television contracts and realignment.

Blame the schools.

 

[uconndogs]

Blame? No one forced schools to get greedy. There was no need for these huge television contracts and realignment.

Blame the schools.

Totally agree with this. Everybody wants to be the victim and identify a villain. College athletics has been devoid of leadership for decades. The mess that is currently in place could have been avoided with such leadership. We went from an NCAA that investigated whether a coach bought a kid a hamburg to a complete open market compensation scheme in recruitment and retention of talent. It now has absolutely nothing.....nothing at all to do with the academic mission of these schools.

 

[CL82]

Blame? No one forced schools to get greedy. There was no need for these huge television contracts and realignment.

Blame the schools.

Yeah, I'm not sure that that's the point you think it is John. If ESPN doesn't bankroll the evisceration of the big east, the conference that we all know and loved still exists. The fact that they did bankroll the evisceration of the big east and didn't carve out a spot for the university of Connecticut has literally, Connecticut taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Your point is essentially like saying don't blame the drug cartels, they don't make anyone take drugs.

 

[Kolumbo]

Blame? No one forced schools to get greedy. There was no need for these huge television contracts and realignment.

Blame the schools.

Oh the irony

 

[jostar1]

I think we can all agree that espn played a major role in destroying the Big East, however way you want to call it. Has there been one news article written and published by espn placing blame on espn? That was and continues to be a major news event. How has espn the great news center reported it?

I watched a youtube video with the former President of ESPN (the cocaine user) and he was basically laughing about it.

 

[JohnFSilver]

Yeah, I'm not sure that that's the point you think it is John. If ESPN doesn't bankroll the evisceration of the big east, the conference that we all know and loved still exists. The fact that they did bankroll the evisceration of the big east and didn't carve out a spot for the university of Connecticut has literally, Connecticut taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Your point is essentially like saying don't blame the drug cartels, they don't make anyone take drugs.

I am not gonna disagree on the culpability of the people with money.

But while I get the metaphor I think you are really downplaying the power the presidents have here. The power isn’t in espn hand. It is in the conferences hands because espn wants the content.

Maybe presidents should have thought about the sport than about their bloated budgets.

football was always so decentralized. The consolidation was never thought out. You got leagues fighting each other and we get stupid conferences that make no sense.

 

[UConnJim]

Writers get canned when no one reads their material.
That's the corporate element to news media as a business.

In the "old days" it was tougher to decide how much each section of a paper was read and how much each inch of print was read. And how much each of that was worth for revenue compared to cost to print.
You could go by phone calls and letters to the editor, or mess around with advertisements to see if moving ads to different locations drew more business for advertisers.
Internet blew up that model. In a few seconds any bean counter can not only tell how many people read each article but how much time they spend reading it. They can also check how many times readers click on ads embedded in those articles.

It's more complicated than this. You are correct, companies can now measure which articles are read and how long people stay on the page, but that is not necessarily how reporters are allocated. One of my friends who is a reporter at a large newspaper that has a union told me it is very difficult to fire the writers that don't get read. The union reporter salaries are capped by the union contract so many of the popular writers will leave for a better opportunity if they can. Those that don't have better opportunities stay. I asked how the most popular writers stay and he told me the very top writers are promoted to management (like asst editor,...) so they can be paid a higher salary.

 

[JohnFSilver]

It's more complicated than this. You are correct, companies can now measure which articles are read and how long people stay on the page, but that is not necessarily how reporters are allocated. One of my friends who is a reporter at a large newspaper that has a union told me it is very difficult to fire the writers that don't get read. The union reporter salaries are capped by the union contract so many of the popular writers will leave for a better opportunity if they can. Those that don't have better opportunities stay. I asked how the most popular writers stay and he told me the very top writers are promoted to management (like asst editor,...) so they can be paid a higher salary.

Where do we start with metrics….i know this very well.

Using views and engagement, on a news story, to determine the worth of the writer is such a bad way to manage (places do it). Usually it is corporate managers who don’t understand news’ place in society. Places like the Courant have turned to this model, letting free market decide what is relevant, and that has predictably devolved into lessening quality and more click bait stories.

I don’t have time to really get into this, could be a Masters Thesis, but the best thing a journalist and editor can do is ignore what “rates” and concentrate on doing relevant and good content.

Chasing clicks devolves into less quality, more content, more click bait.

Views are valuable metric, the most, but your CPMs on click bait content is god awful.

 

[huskymedic]

Bubble leaking…

 

[CL82]

I am not gonna disagree on the culpability of the people with money.

But while I get the metaphor I think you are really downplaying the power the presidents have here. The power isn’t in espn hand. It is in the conferences hands because espn wants the content.

Maybe presidents should have thought about the sport than about their bloated budgets.

football was always so decentralized. The consolidation was never thought out. You got leagues fighting each other and we get stupid conferences that make no sense.

Fully agree that the school presidents opted in what they thought was in their best interest, just like addicts opt in to get their next high. But it is indisputable that ESPN has been a, if not, the prime mover in the conference realignment that we all despise. That they did so in a manner that cost Connecticut taxpayers literally hundreds of millions of dollars, should never be forgotten. Had they decided not to screw over the university in the state that they occupy, the university whose sports were actually the central part of their original business plan, we would not be on the outside, looking in right now and what was indisputably far away the best basketball conference in the country would still be in existence.

Isn't "follow the money" a core principal in investigative journalism? If it was good enough for Woodward and Bernstein, it ought to be good enough for us.

 

[noeynox]

Blame? No one forced schools to get greedy. There was no need for these huge television contracts and realignment.

Blame the schools.

This is odd. So when networks started offering huge sums of money, the schools should have been like, "no thanks"? We just agreed to pay our men's BB coach more per year than the entirety of our TV contract. College sports has been big business for a very LONG time.

 

[huskymedic]

Bubble leaking…

 

[ZooCougar]

I think we can all agree that espn played a major role in destroying the Big East, however way you want to call it. Has there been one news article written and published by espn placing blame on espn? That was and continues to be a major news event. How has espn the great news center reported it?

Yeah but the writers didn’t make those decisions.

Executives did.

 

[ZooCougar]

I am not gonna disagree on the culpability of the people with money.

But while I get the metaphor I think you are really downplaying the power the presidents have here. The power isn’t in espn hand. It is in the conferences hands because espn wants the content.

Maybe presidents should have thought about the sport than about their bloated budgets.

football was always so decentralized. The consolidation was never thought out. You got leagues fighting each other and we get stupid conferences that make no sense.

John,

The networks are running college football now. The NCAA and the conferences were too incompetent so the networks took over. The networks were sick of the scheduling issues and everything else.

School Presidents and Commissioners are just along for the ride.

 

[Jbirdp5]

So even Ohio state, one of the wealthiest athletic departments in the country with all that big 10 money coming in are not making enough to support their revenue producing sports and need to trim the fat? I don’t understand how they aren’t solvent with all the revenue they have coming in

 

[Revrat]

So even Ohio state, one of the wealthiest athletic departments in the country with all that big 10 money coming in are not making enough to support their revenue producing sports and need to trim the fat? I don’t understand how they aren’t solvent with all the revenue they have coming in

Same reason many individuals are not. I forget where I saw the article but basically most people and in this case universities spend all their money. So no matter how much they make they are still always broke. New facilities, equipment, staff they will always spend it all in the arms race.

 

[Samoo]

Oh the irony

Blame the junky, not the dealer. Actually, blame them both.

 

[Ldandy]

John,

The networks are running college football now. The NCAA and the conferences were too incompetent so the networks took over. The networks were sick of the scheduling issues and everything else.

School Presidents and Commissioners are just along for the ride.

While not officially in charge, they most certainly are pulling the strings that run major college sports. I believe that we're rapidly heading to an era of super conferences for both football and basketball. They may be organized under a single media deal for both sports or under separate deals with differing membership for each. Basketball likely having more member programs than football.

The remainder of non-revenue sports will likely realign into more sensible regional conferences. They may still be overseen by a diminished NCAA, as these programs will more resemble the original student athlete model that The NCAA was tasked with managing. If we're being honest there really is no good reason for a Women's Volleyball or Men's Swimming Team to be flying cross country to compete. Conference realignment made that a thing. There are often multiple programs within a 3–6-hour bus ride to where most schools are located. These schools need to be competing against each other.

 

[JohnFSilver]

This is odd. So when networks started offering huge sums of money, the schools should have been like, "no thanks"? We just agreed to pay our men's BB coach more per year than the entirety of our TV contract. College sports has been big business for a very LONG time.

Then they need to act like it. They been in a gray area for a long time .

 

[JohnFSilver]

So even Ohio state, one of the wealthiest athletic departments in the country with all that big 10 money coming in are not making enough to support their revenue producing sports and need to trim the fat? I don’t understand how they aren’t solvent with all the revenue they have coming in

Totally going against their stated mission. It’s just minor league sports now.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

So even Ohio state, one of the wealthiest athletic departments in the country with all that big 10 money coming in are not making enough to support their revenue producing sports and need to trim the fat? I don’t understand how they aren’t solvent with all the revenue they have coming in

I don't think it's a matter of solvency. My interpretation was if the sport isn't generating revenues, the only reason to throw money away at that sport would be if a national championship is a possibility.

 

[Jbirdp5]

I don't think it's a matter of solvency. My interpretation was if the sport isn't generating revenues, the only reason to throw money away at that sport would be if a national championship is a possibility.

I just see how so many people on this board worry about the AD losing money and this makes it seem like if we were getting a check for 60 million a year from the big ten we would still have to trim the fat. I guess it could just be that they just look at it as throwing good money away, but that’s certainly devaluing non revenue sports.

 

[uconndogs]

So even Ohio state, one of the wealthiest athletic departments in the country with all that big 10 money coming in are not making enough to support their revenue producing sports and need to trim the fat? I don’t understand how they aren’t solvent with all the revenue they have coming in

I think it's even worse than that. How can any of these programs know what their payroll costs are going to be? If you want to compete for a NC every season you will need to compete in an open market to attract and retain talent. What do you think is going to happen when programs like tOSU, Michigan, LSU, Bama, USC start competing for talent? Remember, all of this is now in place WITHOUT anything that resembles a salary cap. It would not surprise me in the least if a lot of kids make more money in college than they ever do in the pros.

It's not sustainable.