No, you CAN'T root in the damn press box

We don’t even do sports unless something big happens and then they overcompensate — as I try to make it fit the reality.

 

Awesome stuff. Thanks.
There's a soft spot in my heart for JUCO athletics. It became my beat when transitioning from all-broadcast to all-multimedia. Fortunately, that was in a state with its own highly-competitive JUCO conference.

 

Another NASCAR.com story.

For the final two years of Turner's involvement with the website, we went from an old-school print managing editor to a fresh-faced MBA graduate from UNC who had a little bit of experience doing lifestyle for the Charlotte Observer before going back to college. But her main strategy was to track SEO and boost pageviews from year to year.

So every week, she'd point out how stories about Danica and Dale Jr. would amass huge pageviews and was it possible to somehow write about them again? I hated to explain to her that we were there to chronicle the race and not really just push out puff pieces for being celebrities.

As a compromise, I got to the point where I'd add a throwaway graf "Danica Patrick finished 30th, three laps behind Johnson, and two places in front of Dale Earnhardt Jr." just to satisfy her need to have that in the SEO tag.

I have no idea why Turner decided at some point that every manager had to hold an MBA rather than be an experienced veteran of the industry. They did the same thing for the PGA and NCAA sites, too, which meant adding people who liked making workflow spreadsheets and coverage calendars instead of having news judgment.

Again, great for them to put in the effort to get the diploma but what made that more important than you know, knowing what makes for great content?

 

Yeah, this all tracks for Brooklyn.

 

I am trying very hard to believe readers care about or seek out quality stories, not just photos of kittens and cheerleaders.

 

Well, just write quality stories about kittens with cheerleaders!

 

Love the Cyclones, but very much miss the Staten Island Yankees.

Have not yet seen the Ferryhawks.*




*(The outcome of a fan naming contest - the Boaty McBoatface face of the Atlantic League.)

 

Saw them once last year. They were remarkably scattershot even by indy league standards. Heard some hilarious tales of roster difficulties.

 

Some of the sports stories I most thought people should care about, not enough did.

Which makes me glad that I don't have to make the decisions anymore.

Except it irritates me when my successors don't cover things that I care about.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

 

Most beautiful ballpark in America.

 

I was stunned when MLB fucked them with contraction. Fairly new park, gigantic market and in the shadow of the parent club. Any idea why they drew a short straw?

 

The Arkansas Travelers always drew a huge crowd for clunker car night. Fans could win a car; they gave away several. Sometimes it would be a working car, sometimes it would be a clunker, but if you were a mechanical sort, you could get it running and have a car. This was at the old Ray Winder Field (RIP) just off the highway in Little Rock. The Travs now play in a pretty new stadium in North Little Rock.