Minnesota Sports Forum

AbeVigodaLive wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 11:47 am

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 11:09 am

rapsuperstar31 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 10:59 am

It's all about the clicks. While you and I and most of us on here would rather read any of the tops you listed over another Lakers story, the sad truth is anything Lakers or Bronny related is going to get significantly more traffic and ad revenue money than talking about Houston or Orlando. The actual writer of articles shouldn't care strictly about the revenue, but it's the corporate world we live in.

Rap - i think you’re right about the root cause. But there’s also an element of laziness as well as a tendency to underestimate the audience. I would challenge those in the media to delve into and report on other teams, topics and angles. I think they’d find their audience isn’t as simple or dumb as they might think. A little effort on their part and they might get more clicks with interesting, fresh content than they get lazily pandering to familiar geographic or demographic groups.

Maybe. Maybe not. I've mentioned this before...

A couple years ago, Zach Lowe mentioned that most of the top 10 (most popular) podcasts of his had nothing to do with actual basketball games. The were primarily about trades or FA gossip. For many, many years, the NBA grew its brand by reaching out to the casual fan. And let's be honest, casual fans don't care about pick-and-roll coverage or pin downs.

Casual fans will click on a link about LeBron James. Or Bronny James. Most of this forum of "legit basketball fans" will not. So be it. We're not the ones clicking for cash, buying jerseys or sneakers, or even the most active social media folks.

And in an industry more dominated by money than anything else... well... there you have it.

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And yes, there are parallels to the political world. Bad stuff = clicks. The blunt force of Trump = clicks. People hating things = clicks. Nuanced policies or contextual takes = zzzzzz. Meanwhile, a few power players keep making ALL the money while we bitch and moan about it but without any legitimate recourse to do anything about it.

It's getting worse. And this is one time where for the first time... I don't know if it'll get better.

Blame the media. Blame the powerful people making money off the media. Blame anyone and everyone... but never ourselves.

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 2:54 pm

AbeVigodaLive wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 11:47 am

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 11:09 am

As an aside, I find that NewsNation is fairly down the middle as far as cable/network news is concerned, which overall is a dying medium. But because they play it mostly straight, they probably aren't that popular. Who wants to watch something that doesn't validate your own beliefs and outrage you about the other side???

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 2:54 pm

AbeVigodaLive wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 11:47 am

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 11:09 am

Rap - i think you’re right about the root cause. But there’s also an element of laziness as well as a tendency to underestimate the audience. I would challenge those in the media to delve into and report on other teams, topics and angles. I think they’d find their audience isn’t as simple or dumb as they might think. A little effort on their part and they might get more clicks with interesting, fresh content than they get lazily pandering to familiar geographic or demographic groups.

Maybe. Maybe not. I've mentioned this before...

A couple years ago, Zach Lowe mentioned that most of the top 10 (most popular) podcasts of his had nothing to do with actual basketball games. The were primarily about trades or FA gossip. For many, many years, the NBA grew its brand by reaching out to the casual fan. And let's be honest, casual fans don't care about pick-and-roll coverage or pin downs.

Casual fans will click on a link about LeBron James. Or Bronny James. Most of this forum of "legit basketball fans" will not. So be it. We're not the ones clicking for cash, buying jerseys or sneakers, or even the most active social media folks.

And in an industry more dominated by money than anything else... well... there you have it.

-------------------

And yes, there are parallels to the political world. Bad stuff = clicks. The blunt force of Trump = clicks. People hating things = clicks. Nuanced policies or contextual takes = zzzzzz. Meanwhile, a few power players keep making ALL the money while we bitch and moan about it but without any legitimate recourse to do anything about it.

It's getting worse. And this is one time where for the first time... I don't know if it'll get better.

Blame the media. Blame the powerful people making money off the media. Blame anyone and everyone... but never ourselves.

I actually see hope in (some) podcasts. How interesting that in an era that is supposed to be about decreased attention spans and viral memes and videos that the long-form conversation has made a comeback.

If you get outside of the ESPN ecosystem there are NBA podcasts that don't put such a hyper-emphasis on LeBron/Lakers/Bronny and they will spend some genuine time discussing the type of story-lines that Lip cited in his post.

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As an aside, I find that NewsNation is fairly down the middle as far as cable/network news is concerned, which overall is a dying medium. But because they play it mostly straight, they probably aren't that popular. Who wants to watch something that doesn't validate your own beliefs and outrage you about the other side???

60WinTim wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:47 pm I'll chime in to tout a podcast I find incredibly informative without bias to either side: It's the Morning Meeting on the 2-Way Platform hosted by Mark Halperin, currently with cohosts Sean Spicer (republican perspective) and Dan Turrentine (democratic perspective). They review and discuss the current events and upcoming events, and then take questions from their audience (zoom via their platform). I've only ever watched their podcasts on youtube via their channel called "2WAY".

Mark has recently added a 2WAY Tonight podcast that also find very informative.

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2024 4:17 pm

60WinTim wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:47 pm I'll chime in to tout a podcast I find incredibly informative without bias to either side: It's the Morning Meeting on the 2-Way Platform hosted by Mark Halperin, currently with cohosts Sean Spicer (republican perspective) and Dan Turrentine (democratic perspective). They review and discuss the current events and upcoming events, and then take questions from their audience (zoom via their platform). I've only ever watched their podcasts on youtube via their channel called "2WAY".

Mark has recently added a 2WAY Tonight podcast that also find very informative.

Tim, I've seen some of their stuff and yeah, Halperin is sort of an old-school journalist that doesn't seem to exhibit any obvious bias. He got swept up in the me-too movement a few years ago (and justifiably so if the accusations were true) and was out of the mainstream media complex, but now found a niche with 2-Way. I thought his election coverage was really solid, but haven't watched those guys much since then. My only critique is that Spicer seems way more partisan than Turrentine. Having both perspectives is fine, but ideally they are either equally partisan or equally objective.

kekgeek wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2024 4:25 pm Mike Brown fired 18 months after winning COY