Or did they?

Earlier this week the New York Times ran a story, “Tension Over Blogging.” In the story, Tim Arango writes, “Tension over sports blogging is one of the strains between sports franchises, leagues and reporters to have emerged during the digital age.”

Funny, the story did little to talk about the sports bloggers that started blogging and the millions of people that turn to blogs for coverage of the sports they love and to interact with the other fans that coalesce around specific blogs. The story didn’t talk about the role of blogs in sports or even journalism. The story also didn’t touch on how the blogs have affected the coverage of sports and the expectations of the readers of the New York Times or your favorite blog, like OffWing Opinion.

Are you asking yourself what the story was about yet? The blogging headline caught our eye
but the story had nothing to do with blogging, the real story is one that has played out in other industries over the past decade, it is about the Internet and it’s affects on an industry, this one being the “sports entertainment industry.” At stake are billions of advertising dollars.

Prior to the Internet only print, radio, and television news organizations had the means to communicate to the masses. Traditional media’s audience have come online and blogging has simplified the process of publishing to the point that quite literally anyone can publish a blog. The larger sports leagues have at the same time been developing their own media delivery platforms, while also securing the “coverage” of the events as a revenue stream. They are now making moves to limit access and coverage of their sporting events so that the public’s eyeballs (and subsequent advertising dollars) return to League and team websites.

The NYT’s article is really about the problems of print journalism in meeting the needs of their viewership. Stories come out everyday about more layoffs at a venerable publication. Management hands out point and shoot cameras to reporters; video cameras and audio recording devices to photographers. Quality drops as both reporters and photographers are asked to do more in less time. Yadda, yadda, yadda…I don’t really want to go down this path right now.

John Harrington also wrote about this topic today in a story, Sports Coverage Blackout – It’s About Time. He also touches on press limits being proposed by high school sport leagues in various places around the country. OffWing Photo also looked at this topic earlier this year and how it was being played out in Arkansas and Illinois.

OffWing and OffWing Photo will continue to cover the events that we are given access to. While our writers can sit in the stands or watch from their living rooms, our video and still images our taken by yours truly and a group of dedicated photographers. We strive to provide quality images that would rival the other photographers covering events, we don’t want to do anything less.

The disservice of all this is to the fans, because your source for information is being limited. OffWing blogs because like you we love our teams and the sports we cover. The limits of our coverage should come down to our capabilities and the desire of our fans. While the big leagues can lock us out, they shouldn’t. We increase the value of their “product” and bring them more eyeballs.

Sorry, I am a hopeless romantic. I root for my home town team, look up to the heroes of my sports, and feel fortunate to share with all of you what I can.

Rah! Go team!

Let’s See how this works. I probably should have looked for something like this a long time ago.
Do any of you have any experience using a blog editor? If so I would love any comments or recommendations you have. I work from a Mac, but share you PC editors too, it might help another reader.