The downfall of CBS Sports

I know everyone mentioned or quoted in that piece. And the quote Swanson gave ... that's been true since before I left SportsLine in 2002. The readers do not care. at least 99 percent of them don't. And this business has been distilling down to what it will be since at least 2000. The value is in the accuracy of the information. This is like American railroad companies. There were once hundreds of them. Now there are less than 10.

 

BLOGS!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah, they lost me when they started posting BLOGS!!! under news headlines. You'd call up what looked like a news report, and you'd get some kid blogger saying the same thing four ways in four paragraphs to pad out his little screen page, and it would be blatant speculation on an aggregated item anyway. It was all very Manky.

 

Through their actions, readers have shown they don't care. It's depressing.

 

Fox Sports did the same type of blowing up last year when they let all of their regional writers go as most had a lot of experience in their local markets. Now all their regional sites are just video, wire and press releases.
But I guess since Fox National hired Whitlock, Feldman and gave the carnival barker Clay Travis his own spot, what they did was OK for The Big Lead.

 

Readers may not care who breaks a story, but...the story still does need to be broken/done.

Journalism can't be, and isn't, only about aggregation. Otherwise, there eventually will be nothing to aggregate. Soon, the industry will realize that.

I only hope the readers/the public eventually, finally will, too.

I agree with this. Elling wasn't let go because he was the golf writer. That would have been like saying that he could not report on or cover anything else, and I know from experience that that is not at all true. He is one of the best reporters and most talented writers that it's possible to be. I hate to say it but his being let go was personal and particular, in the financial sense, that is.

He had to make a life decision, and even though it's too bad that he was forced into it, it's not that he couldn't have made any other choice. Sometimes, life decisions are a combination of the opportunities, the level of desire for change, the money and the need level, extent needed to go to in order to make a new thing successful or the right thing to do.

He went to Abu Dhabi because he only wanted to do golf, only wanted to make a certain amount of money, perhaps was intrigued by working in the Middle East for at least a time, a time that didn't have to mean forever, and probably, liked the idea that his compensation was tax-free, and therefore, all the better. And, his family was willing and able to go along with such a decision.

Decisions are always about matter of weights and measures, checks and balances with regard to what matters most to you.

 

But what's wrong with pursuing what you love to do?

 

Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. But the decision showed what things were most important to him, not that that was the only option for work that he could have entertained. That's the point with which I was agreeing.

 

How does it matter in business terms, though, Elliotte?

 

I mean ... It was a money play for CBS to go this route. Do ESPN and others make money by having all those followers? Are Heyman's tweeps paying for the salary he's getting now that CBS wouldn't pay?