Why do sports writers have so much power?

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

The concept of people who ever play the sport having influence on where or not a player gets into an exclusive sports club is dumb to me.

Players are actually forced to talk to reporters. It's in their contract. What if it wasn't? Would they still feel needed?

I could understand the need back when leagues first started, but now? Nah.

 

[MikelArteta]

yah its disgusting, why should some old cacs get to decide who gets into a hof

 

[VegasCAC]

The written format allows you to go into much more depth, and thus allows you to build expertise (or at least have the appearance of it).

TV is 60-180 second segments of blurting out your opinions, whereas sportswriters can write entire books on the intricacies and details of things.

Now whether that is better than experience playing the game is up to debate. I think an academic understanding of the game and an experiental understanding of the game are both valid. Each can provide insights the other can't.

 

[Piff Perkins]

Gotta remember that a lot of people's only experience with baseball was via the radio or newspaper for many years. What developed was a partnership - newspapers essentially advertised baseball for free, and people bought the newspapers. A lot of baseball writers were hardcore fans of the sport and everyone was trying to provide as much access and information (box scores for instance) in order to drive sales. What developed were well respected/talented writers who held huge sway over how people perceived,consumed, and enjoyed the sport. Later on the same applied to football and other sports.

It's easy to let the current state of sports media influence how we view these things, but understanding the origin of sports writing in America is important here. They played a major role in baseball becoming the national pastime and helped turn various athletes into national heroes.

 

[HHR]

The concept of people who ever play the sport having influence on where or not a player gets into an exclusive sports club is dumb to me.

Players are actually forced to talk to reporters. It's in their contract. What if it wasn't? Would they still feel needed?

I could understand the need back when leagues first started, but now? Nah.

Reporters spend more time watching and studying the whole of the game than players do. It's literally their job.

If players didn't talk to the press, there would be less interest in the sport and they'd make less money.

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

The written format allows you to go into much more depth, and thus allows you to build expertise (or at least have the appearance of it).

TV is 60-180 second segments of blurting out your opinions, whereas sportswriters can write entire books on the intricacies and details of things.

Now whether that is better than experience playing the game is up to debate. I think an academic understanding of the game and an experiental understanding of the game are both valid. Each can provide insights the other can't.

Ill use baseball as an example.

You do realized that some of the voters don't even follow baseball but other sports. Some of the voters aren't even sports writers. Some don't even write anymore.


And in many instances, people don't even read sports columns. They read tweets, watch or listen to sports media.

shyt is a joke.

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

How fukking boring would sport be without the press.. Seriously..


And the only reason writers have a say, is because none of the leagues own their HOF. So it's not like they can dictate who and who doesn't have a vote

 

[The Connoisseurs]

That’s like asking why do WORDS have POWER.

Let’s think logically here as we use WORDS
To communicate our thoughts

 

[Michael's Black Son]

The concept of people who ever play the sport having influence on where or not a player gets into an exclusive sports club is dumb to me.

Players are actually forced to talk to reporters. It's in their contract. What if it wasn't? Would they still feel needed?

I could understand the need back when leagues first started, but now? Nah.

the same way political and op-ed writers have power when it comes to the fukkery in DC and local politics.

having a traditional media outlet backing you no matter what gives these dudes free reign like dirty cops.

and surprise, surprise, it's all CACs (young and old) who never stepped foot on a court/field, would never know what its like to put in work in the gym and have no fukking idea how to deal with injuries along with the pressure of being an elite athlete. shyt, they dont even know what it's like being a casual athlete. On the flipside, aside from fantasy sports they dont know the shyt actual owners go thru so they live vicariously through their faux slave actions in the form of "building" a squad and trying to not get their bracket busted in March

these CACs are monday morning quarterbacks with degrees and the ability to write and they also carry that bullshyt "pasttime" notion that their dads passed onto them from an era when the color lines dare not be broken.

so when it comes time to manipulate the sports pages/sites (and eventually hall of fame voting), these dudes have free reign because its a circle jerk of CACs feeling some type of way that the Ty Cobb era is long dead and that modern athletes are getting paid, deified by their kids, breaking "unbreakable' records with no regard and side stepping the media and connecting with the fans directly via social media.

 

[tremonthustler1]

The pen is mightier than the sword. Never forget that.

For as jaded as Americans are towards not just sports writing but journalism in general, without it, we'd be one screwed country. You need that account of events written to you. You have your personalities who use writing as a springboard to be sensationalists but that's because yellow journalism has never been more polarizing

Ill use baseball as an example.

You do realized that some of the voters don't even follow baseball but other sports. Some of the voters aren't even sports writers. Some don't even write anymore.


And in many instances, people don't even read sports columns. They read tweets, watch or listen to sports media.

shyt is a joke.

The tweet is never a great substitute for a well written article.


and for as bizarre as the selection committee is for baseball (newspapers shrinking and less writers on the beat contributing cause this), the Hall of Fame's biggest controversy didn't come from the writers. It came from the veterans' committee which is a combo of writers, former managers and players who voted in one of their homies who really had no business sniffing Cooperstown in Harold Baines.

 

[cobra]

cause they used to control the narrative....before social media fans viewed their fav players through the lens of a sports writer
now with social media and advanced stats so we can independently form our own conclusions....don't need sports writers, reporters or analysts telling us how to think anymore