Tyson Gentry’s foundation, Ohio State, and sports media – WFNY Podcast – 2015-01-29
January 29, 2015Should the Cavs rest Kevin Love? A WFNY Roundtable
January 30, 2015I will not talk about Josh Gordon. I will not talk about Marshawn Lynch. I will not talk about…
I liked the Josh Gordon letter much better when it was read by Frank Caliendo doing Morgan Freeman's voice.
— Craig Lyndall (@WFNYCraig) January 29, 2015
The sports media landscape is weird…
We run a small sports media property here at WFNY, but we notice the ebbs and flows as things change around the sports media landscape. We’re constantly trying to figure out what we want to do and where we fit in this ever-changing world. It’s good to know that giant, well-heeled organizations worth billions struggle to find their fit as well. I read a recent profile of ESPN by The Verge and this tidbit got me thinking.
“If you are slow,” says Anthony Mormile, ESPN’s VP of digital video, “and want to make it beautiful, you can’t live in the Twitter space. Because some guy just held his phone up to his TV and put it up on Twitter, or some guy just GIF’d it, or some guy made a Vine and got the whole play up, and here we come eight minutes after it happened with a ‘ta-da! look at this beautiful opening. And we’ve got music and natural sound!’ And you’re like ‘we already saw it, dude.’”
In a lot of ways this is the space that WFNY has wanted to live. We have a love for all that stuff and especially live on Browns Sundays it seems more important than ever to grab those GIFs and Vines and Tweets and harness into our coverage. The problem, especially for a “property” like ours that is pretty much done for the love of it, you can’t compete with giant well-heeled corporations. Obviously the Internet has allowed some of the gap to be closed as distribution models are evened out between the big and little guys, but even that only goes so far. If ESPN is intent on doing this thing effectively, you can rest assured you aren’t going to beat them.
It just makes for interesting conversation about where the real value of WFNY is. Whenever we talk about it behind the scenes, it usually comes back to the community of writers and readers we’ve built up over the years. It also seems that the community we’ve built likes all that quickly produced and shared stuff because it is pervasive in the sports universes we patrol. Still, it makes me wonder if anyone’s even looking to WFNY for that stuff.
And if we can’t be first or fastest, maybe we need to concentrate on being the best at being slow. Obviously we need to still be timely, but if there’s one thing that ESPN can’t invest in and buy off the shelf and assemble in a space age physical structure it’s tone and perspective that seems to always keep mindful of the audience. Instead of embracing the top-of-the-lungs-screaming-at-you debate style, we’ll continue to be an alternative?
Even locally, we started in a smaller universe with the PD / Cleveland.com, the ABJ, and WKNR. Now, there’s 92.3 The Fan and each of those other properties has continued to advance their sports coverage. The Browns expanded theirs as well bringing a recording studio into Berea in the latest round of renovations. The TV stations are also expanding their reach into the local sports media landscape. Even as the Cleveland scene has more big names than at any time in recent memory, there’s far more noise surrounding it all.
I actually thought LeBron coming back would be a boost to WFNY and our traffic numbers, but it hasn’t been notable. Even though the pie is bigger, we are splitting it with ever more numbers of people.
There’s no conclusion other than to say the media landscape is weird. Also, it’s a really good thing that none of the people here have ever participated in WFNY for the money.
Just say no to an all-women Ghostbusters, even though I won’t…
I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t going to watch a Ghostbusters reboot featuring Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. I’m definitely going to see it because I see lots of movies. Like lots and lots and lots of movies. I might even enjoy this Ghostbusters reboot directed by Paul Feig. I still think it’s a bad idea and I’m disappointed that they’re showing this level of lack of creativity.
The fact that I’m going to go see it is the problem. That’s why they continue to reboot and serialize these movies. We get comfortable with characters in certain universes and they keep trying to get us to buy the same things over and over again.
And this has nothing to do with an all-female cast. I’d gladly see Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy in any number of film projects. I just don’t know why it has to be an attempted re-defining of Ghostbusters. It’s almost an insult to look at Wiig and McCarthy and say to yourself that they need to be strapped to a recognizable property like Ghostbusters in order to ensure financial success. It’s problematic from an artistic standpoint as it instantly sets up comparisons between Wiig and Bill Murray and McCarthy and Dan Aykroyd.
Oh and I just can’t wait to see which man they cast in the role of Sigourney Weaver’s Dana Barrett! Ugh.
Create something new. Take four funny women and put them in a different kind of comedic thriller. Have it involve time travel, or monsters, or even ghosts if you must, but don’t strap proton packs to their backs and make them the next Ghostbusters.
And with that, I’ll see you guys on opening weekend…
Oh my gosh, just don’t be a jerk!
There was a period of time where I was putting WFNY podcasts into posts and having them auto-play. I did it accidentally a few times and then my gears started working. The idea in my mind was that I wanted the stats to increase. I lost sight of what my mission was with the podcast. I wanted to create something that people wanted to listen to. It wasn’t my primary mission to create something and then artificially pump up stats based on bothering people with autoplay. I was being a jerk and a quick conversation with Brian Spaeth showed me the error of my ways. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I’m pretty positive he asked me, “Do you like it when websites have things that autoplay?” I’m sure he stared a hole through me as I gave him the answer. It was obvious and it was equally obvious that I should stop autoplaying my podcast when I put it up.
Which brings me to Mariott, who decided that they wanted to block their customers’ Wi-Fi signals from their personal hotspots in their hotels.
“The Enforcement Bureau has seen a disturbing trend in which hotels and other commercial establishments block wireless consumers from using their own personal Wi-Fi hot spots on the commercial establishment’s premises,” the FCC wrote. “As a result, the Bureau is protecting consumers by aggressively investigating and acting against such unlawful intentional interference.”
So, let me get this straight. Mariott chose to treat their customers in such a way as to limit them from using their own legally purchased services in their hotels? Mariott grabbed the very people they rely on to make money and purposefully treated them poorly in an attempt to extract more revenue? They not only did this, but when caught tried to fight for the fight to do it with the FCC?
This isn’t like a movie theater trying to ban outside food. Movie theaters make their money on food. I read a few years ago that movie theaters make more than 80% of their money from concessions, so keeping outside food out is primary to their business. This is a business that takes their primary form of revenue and then included in its business model, a proactive measure that takes away a customer’s stuff in order to make them buy more stuff, that’s mostly unrelated.
The point is this though. You can’t make a business practice out of mistreating customers. I mean, you can, but it’s a bad idea. I was short-sighted with my autoplay and thankfully I had Brian Spaeth there to call me out on my garbage. Mariott not only didn’t have anyone in its company brave enough to stand up to this, they took it to the FCC to try and get their customer abuse preserved via ruling. Not a good look at all.
Your weekly moment of soccer zen…
I need to shout out the soccer people of Reddit. I get my links from there every single week because they’re the best aggregators.
This week I bring you a beautiful counter-attack shot from the crowd. I just wish there was audio. This is why it’s amazing to attend soccer games.
Music this week is The Sidekicks…
Andrew told me about these guys and now I feel like I own this one too. From the beautiful harmonies on the opening track of their new album “Hell is Warm,” I was completely taken in by this band. It’s everything I ever wanted Band of Horses to be and something a bit more. Anyway, just great, listenable rock music. Love this.
65 Comments
at $15 per ticket ($30 for you and your date), that means you’ll need to watch 200 movies to earn back your investment.
i thought the new Footloose was bad. There is only 1 Kevin Bacon.
Babysitter is $20 an hour? I usually go around 60 bucks for 5 hours (usually because it is like from 7-11 or 12 and they are supposed to be in bed at 8-830
I got 2 kids – and it’s the “New Brooklyn.” Kinda like the “New South.” remember that whole thing?
as someone who lives out of town and doesn’t go to Browns Backers bars and such, I really miss having the open threads during Browns games. I liked reading if other people were thinking the same thing as me (if only to validate my insanity) or not. I just liked having that community.
funk that
I hate that I expose myself (pause) as someone who doesn’t read all the WWWs almost every single week. lol
http://img1.123friendster.com/en/FunnyHello/8.gif
Okay, that math works if we assume that the food cost difference goes towards purchase or streaming of the movies I watch at home.
But, then add in the utility of watching sports in that room too. And, the kids aren’t factored into that equation. And, the times they would invite friends over for epic video gaming over going out.
I think I’d make it back pretty quickly. I’m feeling more justified now 🙂
I don’t care if you don’t read other people’s WWWs. I only care that you don’t read MY WWWs!!
finely curated
https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/mm4.gif?w=450&h=253
Well that’s just sad.
How about this for a weekly soccer of zen……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xugnQoEiJ4
The website is great, no doubt…. The comments section, full of off topic GIF’s and a bunch of inside jokes among members of the “Bros Club” isn’t so great. A lot of these guys should just get dinner once a week and leave the WFNY boards for sports talk.
Just my 2 cents.
I don’t think I see the problem with what Mariott did. I work at a university and a major issue our IT dept has is the interference that hotspots cause with the provided Wi-Fi. Sounds like we might be using a similar system that Mariott purchased. Could it be that they were simply trying to protect the purchases of those who did pay them for internet?