What's more, Franklin argues, ESPN's newfound fascination with localism — espndallas.com is now up and running, and comparable sites are reportedly in the works for New York and Los Angeles — is forcing more established local outlets to respond with defensive expansions of their own. (The ESPN threat shouldn't be underestimated, here and elsewhere: according to Sports Business Journal, espnchicago.com averaged more unique visitors in May, June, and July of this year than the sports sites of both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.) Factor in the proliferation of other new sites — including attitude-heavy destinations such as Gawker Media's deadspin.com and corporate portals like mlb.com, nfl.com, and nba.com — and today's sports-media scene, Franklin contends, evokes "where we were 50 years ago, when big cities had multiple newspapers butting heads in a very Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest mode."
Loving a loser?
Implicit in that reference to Darwin, obviously, is the suggestion that some of these new entrants into the sports-media fray will eventually wither and die. But given Boston's longstanding tendency to regard itself as different (i.e., better) than the rest of the country — not to mention Boston sports fans' current besottedness with their teams and themselves — it's no surprise that some foresee a different outcome here in Massachusetts.
Case in point: Bruce Allen, publisher of Boston Sports Media Watch, who struck a sanguine note when I asked him if there was enough fan interest to sustain the expanded sports-media status quo. "I'd say there is, especially since there are three very competitive teams in the city," he replied via e-mail. (The Bruins don't make the cut.) "As I've learned, when things are going well — and sometimes when they aren't — fans will read every single piece they can on their teams."
This optimism isn't universal, however. "I absolutely think that the cream is going to rise," says Bill Bridgen, general manager of Comcast SportsNet New England. "Right now, you've got seven or eight major players in the sports marketplace. Five years from now, I don't think that's the case."
The worst-case scenario, in terms of future contraction and attrition, might go something like this: next year, two or three more new outlets jump into the local sports-media fray, à la the Sports Hub. Around the same time, local fans realize, to their dismay, that the current Golden Age of Boston sports is coming to an abrupt halt. Bill Belichick's controversial fourth-down call against the Colts proves to be the beginning of the end of the Patriots dynasty; the advanced age of the Celtics' core dooms the team to early playoff exits; like the Yankees had before this fall, the Red Sox suffer a lengthy postseason slump of their own. And all of a sudden, hundreds of thousands of fans discover, en masse, that consuming every media report involving their favorite teams isn't quite as enjoyable when those teams aren't winning.
Could it happen? "That kind of question always takes me back to [former Celtics coach and GM] Rick Pitino's 'negativity' line," says Bridgen. (The memorable line in question, uttered by Pitino to protest criticism of the Celtics' mediocrity under his watch, was: "All the negativity in this town sucks. It sucks, and it stinks, and it sucks.")
