Sporting News/AOL Fanhouse

Thanks Rasputin. I stand corrected. But that does not change my main point is that AOL shit on its employees -- not Sporting News. Even if the SB Nation bit isn't true, AOL had all the leverage and could have insisted that any deal include continued employment for the Fanhouse team, or as much of it as possible.

So let's put the blame where it really belongs and stop making Sporting News and Garry Howard the bad guys.

 

Agree 100 percent. AOL is doing this, not TSN.

 

Agree on the overall point, but Howard hiring one of his MLB guys from Milwaukee a couple days after 4 or 5 Fanhouse MLB writers were told they're getting the ax doesn't look real good either

 

Sporting News did a deal to build traffic, and they're paying to do it. And neither Garry Howard nor anybody else on the editorial side of TSN is at fault for this.

This is eerily reminiscent -- just at smaller numbers -- of the $20 million A YEAR then-SportsLine paid AOL back in the late '90s for the right to do all the work to run their sports channel. All in exchange for a lot of links back to SportsLine.

There were all sorts of problems, and it wound up being a pretty bad deal for SportsLine (there are probably worse characterizations, but I'll stop there). I doubt that this will be without similar problems, although it's certainly a completely different time; AOL was completely in the driver's seat back then. Not so much anymore.

 

Wait, the AOL-SportsLine deal wasn't a smooth operation.

If I recall, Sporting News jumped in with some kind of minor deal with AOL back then, too. But I guess all those people are gone now and don't see the trouble that can occur when you work with AOL.

And p.s., the Sporting News' website still really sucks. I'm not sure a deal with Fanhouse will save that site.

 

Hey silent, "supply, demand and leverage" is a pretty good working definition of business hard-heartedness.

My point remains, we don't see a lot of office workers across the board -- even at media companies -- being told, "Sorry folks, we're cancelling your paid time off and your group health insurance, because we know you don't have many employment alternatives." What, really, would the primary breadwinner in a family of five do under those circumstances? Send out resumes, sure. But quit in a huff? Walk? Immediately accept an equally good job option that just happens to be sitting open? Don't think so.

Either we (and others who end up doing contract work) are to blame for just accepting that sort of treatment or the businesses are to blame for deciding that, yeah, we can do it with writers, photographers, etc., but we cannot do it with the accountants, marketing folks or clerks.

The whole economy is dripping with supply, demand and leverage that favors employers right now. But contract work isn't becoming the norm for most jobs. I see more places laying off people than I do striking benefits from their deals with workers.

 

In some sense, it's a moral argument as well. In a country where, for better or worse, we have an employer-based health care system, these major companies are making a moral decision that greater profit margins are more valueable than their employees long-term stability. It's not a good vs evil thing. It's about maximizing stock value for your shareholders, and that's fine. That's business in America. But it's a moral decision. If you run a company, you can ask yourself what you're in it for. If you're a company like Costco, you make a decision that there is value in stability and you offer benefits while still trying to maximize profits. And if you're Wal-Mart, you view your employees as widgets mostly and tell yourself the brand matters above all.

By saying we do not want to offer benefits to the majority of our employees, these companies are saying "well, we believe the brand matters more than the employees. We pay well enough and there is enough demand for these jobs that we can just hire someone else if you don't like it. We will keep on rolling without you." And that's fine, I just think there is another way to do business, still make money, and not view people as widgets.

 

Garry did the right thing by making the hire he wanted. He's the new coach taking over a staff. When he has an opportunity to add to the staff he should bring in people who are qualified -- and who are loyal to him. I don't know how good the guy in Milwaukee is but he is certainly loyal to Garry. That importance cannot be minimized given how Garry has been savaged on this board. If he is to succeed at Sporting News he needs people who are all in with him. The Fanhouse people were all in with Scott Ridge. Big difference.

The bottom line is that business is business. If Garry wants to build his own team he has every right to, just as Scott Ridge built his own team at AOL.

 

I kind of understand what you're trying to say, Cigar, but on the other hand, this isn't a sports team, and I certainly don't want every new "coach" remaking staffs from top to bottom every time there's a change at the top in the media business.

 

I agree with much of what you said. I also want to make clear: it really sucks, and in no way do I like what's happening.

That said, I do think our industry isn't done consolidating. That is, shrinking. I hate to say this, but in the internet era of information distribution, there's a ton of redundancy in our field. Regardless of skill, experience or talent level.

Given that backdrop, I think that's why you see the contract model/Wal-Mart style treatment of workers. I think you'll see more of it as time goes on. And you'll see it in other fields, too.

Oddly enough, the rewards for the people who make it will probably increase. That seems to be the way of things.

 

Joe, I'm sorry, but you're completely misreading the labor situation. Sure, bookkeepers and the like might not have a lot of employment alternatives right now. But they might. And when the economy improves, they'll be out the door in five seconds if they're mistreated now, and then the company that behaved like an asshole will be in tough shit. Where can those workers go? To any company that needs those services, which is probably just about any company in the world, including thousands in their locales so they wouldn't have to change anything else about their lives. So where can a pissed-off sportswriter go?

To answer your question of whose responsibility it is, then: Unfortunately, it's absolutely on the providers of services to decide the conditions under which they'll work. I know the company is dictating terms. But it's up to each individual to decide whether he or she wants to accept those terms.

I have a gig as a technical writer, part-time but consistent, for which I'm paid $75 an hour. It is not difficult work, certainly nothing as difficult as writing a game story and sidebar or putting out a section on deadline. Yet I get pay that's roughly twice as good, maybe more than twice as good. Do you know why? Because the company knows that nobody really wants to be doing this technical writing so desperately that they would do it for $30 or $40 an hour. Meanwhile, a newspaper or Internet company knows that when it comes to writing sports, it can always find someone willing to do the work for less or literally for free. Is it as good? Probably not. But maybe so, since I know a lot of former colleagues who are highly respected throughout the industry who are doing just that, writing one-offs for major websites for free or for maybe a flat fee of $200 or less. "Building their brand," I believe they call it. A lot of these Fanhouse writers who no longer have their contractor work are going to be jumping into that pool, willingly writing for the same pittance. Why, again, would any media company feel like they have to pay more?

You use the term "hard-heartedness." I would say every journalist, particularly in sports, develop some of that in himself or herself and calculate how much "value" there is in continuing to grind away in this business. How much is the prestige, enjoyment and excitement worth in dollar terms? If it's worth the financial sacrifice, by all means, go for it. But we're five years into the bottom dropping out of this business, and there are still TONS of people who are doing everything they can to postpone having that real conversation with themselves.

Supply and demand will never, ever again favor the provider of the services in journalism. It's going to be a long next five years for anyone who believes differently.

 

What is AOL circa 2011?

Where do you find it? AOL.com? What can I find there I can't find anywhere else more easily?