"Let Me Know When the Days of Great Sports Writing Return"

It's sort of like when somebody watches Two Broke Girls and Real Housewives of Somewhere and proclaims TV today is terrible despite the fact there are more quality shows on than ever. There might also be more bad shows too, but there are tons of good choices.

 

Or, when people only judge music by what is still played/treasured/remembered and forget how much terrible stuff there was "back in the good old days" as well. Look at a top 40 chart from any time in the past 50 years and you'll find just as much garbage as there is on the radio today.

 

In total agreement. Most of the public enjoys being the choir to whom is preached. That's why former legit sportswriters are working for school athletic web sites and writing zero controversial stuff and not crossing control-freak coaches.

 

I would love to see analytics on writers who receive the most adulation here.
And I suspect them viewing their own web strikes would be positively terrifying.

 

Let me know when guys who have been stealing money and gliding along strictly on reputation for two decades, plus, are finally isolated and picked off. Thanks.

 

Absolutely. Granny Rice wrote a TON of maudlin crap.

 

I feel like sports reporting has gotten a lot more analytical in the last couple of years. For instance, you see more and more NFL reporters doing their own "film review" the day after a game, going off either what they recorded on their TV or All-22 film available on NFL Game Rewind. I religiously follow FishDuck.com, which is dedicated to Oregon's football strategy, and they do a pretty damn good job of it too. There are more and more sites like this popping up, and I don't think that's exactly a bad thing. The flowing narrative is but one element of sports reporting.

 

I see Zintel's point and agree. The younger guys don't go deep enough into a story or attempt to be witty. There is talent but the market has changed dramatically. The days of the long drawn out pieces that captivate you are gone but not forgotten by this scribe.

 

So does Wright Thompson.
The only thing missing with this guy most of the time is a pan flute in the background.

 

Now that's funny.

 

I like my "long reads" to have a point.
And some sense of pacing.

 

I agree that sports sites are losing interest in long-read sports stories, because their readers have. MMQB and BR is here to stay.

That said, sports has become such a cultural interest, that if I was a writer who specialized in long-form take-outs, I would take my skills to more general (or high-brow niche) outlets, like The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Salon, NPR, CSM, Rolling Stone, etc.