Comments on: Thoughts On Baseball Media

By: Canasta

Canasta — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:52:33 +0000

eccellente tilico mi bavido te crinhado autuiria emubtrais. rulemo te abuita ssemo nos ranho o tismobra cerado cunco bien.

By: Kathryn @ Lancaster 4G Wireless

Kathryn @ Lancaster 4G Wireless — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:07:14 +0000

Hello, just wandered by. I have a Lancaster 4g site. Lots of information out there. Looking for something else, but nice site. Have a great day.

By: Dan Szymborski

Dan Szymborski — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:37:13 +0000

I guarantee you that wrong predictions never go out in the ether. I still get occasional grief for wrong predictions I made 10 years ago. There’s a guy on BTF that constantly brings up David’s Cano predictions every time his name comes up. And so on.

By: Cyndi Entress

Cyndi Entress — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:43:06 +0000

Fantastic site I have been looking for such information for a long time, glad to have found it and will come again soon. Thanks

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:07:18 +0000

With respect to pay content on websites, people fail to remember that the nominal charge for a newspaper ($.50) does not come anywhere near covering a newspapers expenses. In fact, it was started because studies showed that people equated paying for something with good content and charging for a product increased circulation. The vast majority of a newspaper’s revenues come from advertising. Right now, the cost of internet advertising is very low in comparison, but as demand for online content increases, the cost of advertising online will go up. This will enable online journalism to exist purely on advertising.

By: Jeff Fletcher

Jeff Fletcher — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:05:03 +0000

I hope you are right Brian, but I’m afraid too many people are just unwilling to pay for anything online. That has to change.

By: Brian Recca

Brian Recca — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:10:27 +0000

And I believe with the downfall of newspapers more sites like Yahoo will develop.

By: Jeff Fletcher

Jeff Fletcher — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:44:50 +0000

Just for your information, right now I believe there is only one internet-only company that is paying writers to produce baseball content: Yahoo. They have three full-time writers.

Everything else relies on something else to pay the freight, like TV (espn.com, foxsports.com, cbssportline.com) or a newspaper.

By: Brian Recca

Brian Recca — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:05:01 +0000

Personally I feel like eventually the internet will have more sites where they are paying writers to cover stories. These news sites will be able to incorporate on the scene journalism and blogs while gaining revenue for subscriptions to the sit as well as advertisements, just like the newspaper does now.

As far as the 33 or whatever percent of people don’t have computers or an internet connection argument, the internet hasn’t even been around for 20 years yet. The first working television was created in the late 1930′s and wasn’t mainstream for another 25-30 years.

Another medium that is growing is cell phones. Look at the iphone, you can search the internet from pretty much anywhere in the country and find information you need. Eventually most phones will be like the iphone and cheaper too.

By: Jeff Fletcher

Jeff Fletcher — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:02:32 +0000

Matthew, I agree that the future of the online content is the kind of stuff you are talking about. The question is: are you willing to pay for that? Online advertising alone does not pay the costs associated with reporting the news. I’m sure the ad revenue from Baker’s work does not even come close to paying his expenses for being in Arizona, let alone his salary.

I think the only way that the mainstream media can survive is if people somehow come to the realization that they should pay for the work of the reporters and editors, just like they would for someone who provides any other service.

Unfortunately, people now believe that they have a right to all the information they want for free because newspapers have given it away (a mistake that’s costing them dearly now).

As Dave pointed out in his original piece, there is a lot of great information produced by people like him that is given for free, but the difference is those people are producing the information on their schedules, around other jobs, and there is relatively little cost to produce it. For a mainstream news organization to cover the Mariners, it has to have someone with the team or on call 24/7.

Geoff Baker’s not doing all this just for fun. He deserves to be paid. If people aren’t going to pay him by buying the newspaper, they need to “buy” the online content.