The Rise of the Sports Mass Media Industrial Complex Oligolopoly

In Boston, the owner of the Red Sox threw some petty cash around and bought one of the town's major metropolitan dailies.

In Morgantown, disputes over Tier 3 broadcasting rights threw the old college town into a tizzy, hammered a wedge between two state Republican Party titans, and smashed a decades old relationship between the university and a media company.

ESPN long ago absorbed a traditional television network and an entertainment company.  Then it ran its bull through college sports' china shop, smashing conferences and forcing decisions on what defined a college sports program as "viable."  The American free market has sent two St. Georges, Fox Sports and NBC, to slay the dragon.

But that story is still developing.

These developments lead observers to ask, is the current fast inflation of the sports industry and its media handmaidens economically or ethically good for either?

Columbia Journalism Review analyzed the sharp rise in the value of sports franchises, as well as the coincidental correlation with the decline of traditional media, especially print.  It posed the question, can a hometown media outlet report fairly on a sports issue if it is linked with the franchise?

CJR answers the question by pointing out how poorly ESPN has covered stories in which it plays a central role.

Media tend to perform poorly when interests collide.  CJR speculates that the Boston Globe will have a harder time covering the team honestly when its parent company owns the Red Sox.  But this is hardly a unique situation.  When owned by General Electric, NBC tread very carefully when covering stories about its parent company.  Media outlets often face important decisions and criticism when dealing with stories involving critical advertisers.

Another problem with the sports mass media blobonomy is that there has to be a saturation point.  There are only so many sports fans.  There can be only so much interest here and abroad. Rules changes done for safety or (more often) public relations transform the games, frustrating traditional fans.

Rising prices have created an impact as well.  The cost of tickets and merchandise either now, or soon will, exceed the value of the product.  Players' and owners drives to profit as much as possible rely on a steep willingness of the market to pay.  What is the cost to the sport's profitability if children have less and less opportunity to see the games in person?

Franchises and media increasingly aim at sports followers instead of fans.  Serious differences separate the devoted latter from the fickle former.

A warning comes from the fate of American boxing.  Once one of the most popular sports in the nation, it died because the sports' foremost figures decided that it could thrive by forcing anyone interested in watching premiere events to pay through the nose.  Boxing still makes money, but how many Americans can name the heavyweight champion right now, let alone any contenders?

Anyone who thinks that bad decisions by the major sports could not reduce any of them in a generation to the status of boxing is delusional.

Sports teams' value comes entirely from the perception by their markets that an experience involving them has value.  No one needs to consume the product to survive. No one needs the product to help them understand the world better. That is why the notion of franchises worth over a billion is troubling.  At the end of the day, they don't make anything of substance.  How long can the market sustain them, especially given a seemingly never ending economic slump?

In other words, the sports media industry displays many of the classic features of an economic bubble, except for the availability of too easily obtained credit.  Nothing grows this fast forever and leisure spending is fickle.

And this is not meant to be a hand wringing, what-is-to-be-done, kind of commentary.  Making money honestly is no sin.  But, like any other industry, those invested and involved need to understand that no sure fire never fail model has ever existed.  What goes up tends to come down. And if mass media outlets tie themselves too securely to the sports industry ship, they may sink with it should market priorities change.

Nice Guys Don't Always Finish Last

Bill Stewart, above all other things, is a nice guy.

The million dollar question on a lot of folks' minds today is "what does Bill Stewart think."

Oliver Luck, West Virginia University's athletic director, has apparently inked Bill Stewart's replacement starting in 2012. Dana Holgerson has crafted top notch offensive units for Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. He has agreed to be West Virginia's offensive coordinator next year and head coach in 2012. In an interesting twist, Holgerson turned down Pitt's offer to become head coach there immediately.

Stewart agreed to be head coach next year and presumably will afterwards move upstairs to a soft and lucrative job in the athletic department. Barring disaster, he will retire with the best winning percentage of any coach in West Virginia history, at leats two bowl wins and one conference championship under his belt. Pretty good for a guy with a losing record at Virginia Military Institute prior to his stint here.

It is possible that Stewart has grown weary of the abusiveness of a certain segment of the fan base who believed that their school should have looked a little harder at different options to replace Rodriguez. If he was part of this process, it would be good to hear that from him. If he was not part of the process, it shows a possibly necessary ruthlessness on the part of Luck. The team seemed to lose focus at times this year on the offensive side of the ball. The offensive line had not progressed as fast as some had hoped. Skilled players fumbled balls without even being hit. Current offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen obviously will not be invited back. However Jeff Casteel, architect of one of college football's most punishing defenses, has agreed to stay on under the new regime.

Stewart's success at West Virginia includes more than wins. He has recruited top flight talent on both sides of the ball, which should give the new OC a lot of options next year. However, the perception is that West Virginia slipped from a top fifteen program to one once again hovering on the edges of the top twenty.

If the coaching staff can work together next year, this team has a chance at accomplishing some big things. Stewart can have a farewell tour and over time, memory of his coaching tenure will be that of a Beleinlike transition period. You liked the guy, he had some nice wins, but he probably was not going to get you to the top. Holgerson can take the next year as an understudy and learn how to build and manage a program. Some coordinators make that jump pretty well, others don't.

Hopefully this is yet another success authored by Oliver Luck.

Nice Guys, Players, and Coaches

On the way home from a tournament in Pittsburgh Saturday evening, I was talking to a couple of our 6th grade travel team's players in the backseat. We were talking about Bobby Huggins and his reputation for not always being the nicest guy in coaching. One of the players responded that people who are nice all of the time don't make great coaches. It's true. Sometimes a great coach has to play mind games. Sometimes they have to be gruff and abrasive. However that alone will not get those players to run through a wall for you. They have to know that behind the occasional yelling that the coach cares, not just about winning, not just about basketball, but about the player as a person.

Bobby Huggins' team did not beat Duke the other night. They came out slightly flat, lacking the emotion that helped them win so many games against the best teams in the country. Duke shot the ball better than they had all season long. However, Huggins and his team emerged from the floor winners in a different way.

West Virginia's basketball team has a bond with themselves and their coach that will last a lifetime. Love, commitment, passion, teamwork pervades this team and it flows from the man that patiently worked to bring them together. When star guard Da'Sean Butler hit the floor with a knee injury, ending his team's chance at a national title, we saw the growling coach grasp his stricken player by the head and hand and talk him through the crushing sorrow evident all over Butler's face.

Huggins had to do this once before. At Cincinnati, star player Kenyon Martin's injury ended a run at the national title. Huggins talks occasionally about that player being upset over letting his team down. Emotion fills the coach's voice when he speaks of that incident.

Huggins talks about being special. Definitely getting to the Final Four is special. The adoration of fans who will remember every name on this team forever is special. Even more special is the personal bond between coach and player and the players with each other. As the disappointment fades, the bonds remain cemented in place forever.

We saw Saturday night why Bobby Huggins is a great coach. Beyond the screaming and the scheming is a human being that cares about his players, a figure cared about by the young men he leads. Plenty of nice guys are out there that are very pleasant to be around, but neither feel nor inspire a great depth of emotion from most people. Huggins has legions that admire and despise him. Those who dislike him need to revisit that minute or two when the coach guided his young star emotionally before helping him off the floor.