Some thoughts, comments and questions that struck me during the recent Sports Media & Technology conference put on by SportsBusiness Journal/SportsBusiness Daily over two days in New York City:
■ HONESTY ABOUT TWITTER: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports acknowledged he began tweeting in 2008 as a way to compete against ESPN. “There’s a level of guerrilla warfare in reporting,” he said. “We wake up and say, ‘How can we impact [ESPN’s] TV show and take a wrecking ball to it?’ That’s our goal every day. You don’t necessarily beat them with conventional warfare, but you’ve got to be the guys hiding in the trees. So we used Twitter to start breaking draft picks and as trades were happening. That created a following, and that’s how we competed against them.” … When asked specifically about what he would change about the current sports media landscape, Bill Simmons pointed to Twitter, which he admits he’s benefited from. “I think Twitter is going to be a real danger to sports writing eventually,” Simmons said. “It’s funny because Twitter has been great for me.” … Acknowledging how vital reporters consider Twitter for establishing their brand names, Fox Sports Interactive’s Jeff Husvar expressed surprise by how much they pushed using the platform. “Our writers are jumping out of their skin to post on Twitter,” he said. “They really want to establish themselves on Twitter.” Wojnarowski later added a personal problem to the medium: “On Twitter,” he said, “you see the insecurities of people.”
■ STYLE POINTS FOR MARK LAZARUS: The 48-year-old was named chairman of NBC Sports in May, and was asked at the conference what it’s like filling the shoes of such a big personality and leader like Dick Ebersol. Lazarus previously followed in the footsteps of another big personality when he took over as president of Turner Sports from Harvey Schiller at the age of 36. In addressing his latest move, Lazarus handled the question with aplomb and class. “You don’t replace Dick in what he did,” he said. “I’m going to take the best of what I think he brought to the group … and put my own stamp on it, adding to his legacy of storytelling and production and treating people well and working with partners as the best partner in sports television.” With dignified answers like this, you can see how Lazarus has engendered so much loyalty from those he’s worked with over the years.
■ THE IMPACT AND INNOVATION OF THE IPAD: NFL Media COO Brian Rolapp always has a smart take, and he made an eye-opening point when he noted the biggest change he’s seen in sports media is competition and technology. When it comes to technology, for example, look at the amazingly swift adoption of Apple’s iPad, which has been on the market for less than two years. “It is now over a $9 billion-a-year business,” Rolapp noted, “which is bigger than the NFL.” But he wondered where the innovation was when it comes to at-home TV technology, calling the set-top box maddeningly archaic. “Sports TV consumption is ripe for innovation,” he said. “A trend I’m watching is the next wave of interactive TVs, which will not come from your set-top box. It’ll come from a game console or from your tablet or from when Apple figures out how to put the iPad on a wall.”
■ THE CHANGING FACE OF PUBLISHING: Sporting News President and Publisher Jeff Price gave the sharpest example of new technology’s influence on publishing. “Three years ago, 90 percent of Sporting News’ revenue was print-oriented,” he said. “Looking towards 2012, we will have flipped that to be 90 percent digital business.”
Abraham D. Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
