The Extinction of the Sports Guy

We’ve heard the murmurs, the whispers, the rumors.  They all well up into a broad statement that pierces the heart of any current or aspiring sportscaster: Sports anchors are becoming dinosaurs.

But it’s easy to incite fear with overarching generalizations that are not factually supported…and it’s working.  The Penn State Center for Sports Journalism asked sports guys if they thought “someday sports may not be a part of the local television newscast,” and 55% of the 216 respondents agreed.

Why would the guys (yes, 92% of the respondents were men) think such a thing?  It doesn’t help that news directors are seemingly nonchalant about the issue; 43% agreed that “the news director at my station does not put enough value on sports.”

When they look around, sports guys see nothing but shrinking, cutting and downsizing.  Some, like former Pittsburgh sports director-turned morning news anchor Andrew Stockey, see the writing on the wall and get out before the buzzer sounds.  According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, When Stockey started with WTAE in 1995, there were six employees in the sports department.  When he switched, there were three.  (Check for yourself whether Stockey made a smooth transition.)

To sprinkle a bit of salt on the wound: According to the State of the News Media 2010 annual report, local TV stations cut 450 jobs in 2009, not counting the 1200 lost in 2008.  That burns. 

Of course, there are numerous factors at play.  The "major trends" listed in the News Media report say that today, people are more interested in national and international topics rather than local news.  Instead of North Dakotans turning on the nightly news to check in on the Oak Grove Class B boys basketball team, they’re flipping to ESPN to see the latest "Not Top 10". 

While some aspects of journalism are shrinking, the analysis and commentary/discussion aspect of news is thriving.  For some reason, people really do care what Trent Dilfer and Herm Edwards think about any topic under the sun.  When we turn on the TV for news, we’re hearing more and more argumentation and opinions instead of good ol’ information.        

And then there’s the internet.  According to the Pew Research Center, the internet is making news more portable, personalized, and participatory. 

“[People] seem to access news when the spirit moves them or they have a chance to check up on headlines...People’s experience of news, especially on the internet, is becoming a shared social experience as people swap links in emails, post news stories on their social networking site feeds, highlight news stories in their Tweets, and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads.”

 The web’s instantaneous, at-your-fingertips approach is captivating people.  Meanwhile, the local sports guys have a few options: Sit at the anchor desk, waiting for 6:23 to come so he can finally do his own captivating…or go back to the drawing board.

Madden's Minions

GOOD NEWS!!  Now, NFL fans don’t need to suffer through seasons of injuries to star players, off-field drama involving past-their-prime quarterbacks, or even collapsing stadiums.

EA's simulation picked the Pack back in September

No more! That's because technology and new media are minimizing the game...and deflating the egos of sports broadcasters everywhere.  You see, the genius publishers of the Madden NFL video games can now predict the winner of the Superbowl before the season even begins, so there is no longer any need to actually play the NFL season...or for sportscasters to wretchedly attempt to make their own, human predictions of the outcomes of sporting events.

You see, back in September EA simulated the upcoming 2010 NFL season.  Eric Malinowski of Wired. com explained the results last fall:

Brett Favre may still be gunslinging up in Minnesota, but it’ll be his longtime fans in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that will celebrate a Super Bowl win this February, according to Electronic Arts. 

“We wanted to give it a shot,” Phil Frazier, senior producer of the Madden franchise, told Wired.com. “There are a lot of variables at play with multiple teams, but we wanted to see how we do this year. It was one sim, and we let the chips fall where they may.

The chips fell, to say the least.  In fact, when making its prediction before the big game, EA's chips have fallen in the perfect place six times in the past eight years. 

To be fair, there are some caveats.  First, while EA correctly picked the Packers back in September, after their more recent simulation of Super Bowl XLV, EA pulled a Brett Favre, waffling and picking the Steelers to take the cake.

Plus, EA’s 6-2 record in predicting NFL champs is based on the predictions made just before the Super Bowl is played.  We all know it’s easier to pick correctly between two teams than between 32.  But hey, 6-2 still isn’t too shabby.

We sports junkies usually turn to John Clayton or our favorite human NFL expert for pre-season predictions.  But should we now rely on Madden’s robots instead?  Maybe. Before the season began, the ESPN guys published their picks on ESPN.com and only four of the 16 correctly picked Green Bay.

Peter King, the senior NFL writer for Sports Illustrated deserves a shout-out: In September's issue he foresaw a Steelers-Packers Super Bowl…but picked the black and yellow over the cheeseheads, 33-27.  Close only counts in horseshoes.  Turns out he's a mere mortal as well, just like the rest of us.

Football is a beautiful game.  Picking the Super Bowl winner in September is a beautiful thing.  Computers predicting the outcome of entire sporting seasons months before they actually occur (stealing the thunder of sportscasters like Clayton): not so beautiful.