There has been a lot of discussion on the future of newspapers and news organizations recently, including a Charlie Rose segment, a Time cover story by Walter Isaacson, a long New York Observer piece and countless blog posts that I’ll link to in context.
There are way too many things happening under the guise of ‘the Web’, ‘blogs’, ‘Google’ and ‘free’ to talk about in one post so I’ll most likely write several posts in an attempt to isolate specific issues. In fact, I already started.
This post contains a comparison of online news to professional sports. I’ve used soccer since it’s the sport I’m most familiar with and it inspired this analogy but, steroids aside, I think many if not all of the principles mentioned here could be drawn from other professional sports. If any insights from other sports come to mind I’d love to hear about them in the comments. So, what is this all about?
Anyone can play soccer. All that’s needed is a ball and a goal and those of us who grew up playing in the park know ‘jumpers for goal-posts’ work just fine for that (jumpers = sweaters).
Most people that play soccer do so for the exercise or love of the game and because it’s fun. These people play at varying levels of proficiency and competitiveness but none with the intention of making money.
A relatively tiny number of the very best soccer players earn the privilege of playing for a professional team, and a small percentage of those play for a handful of the biggest clubs that make very large sums of money.
Most professional soccer players earn much more modest salaries at smaller clubs and in lower leagues. Clubs struggle for profitability at all levels but the numbers show it’s a winner-takes-all game.
Blogs and other forms of personal publishing have provided amateurs a virtual soccer ball and makeshift goal posts they can use to ‘play’ that they didn’t have access to before. No boots, no jerseys, no coaching, no crowds, no money. People are now able to write and publish for recreation just the same way they play sports.
The difference with Web publishing is that everyone is playing on one great big, linked canvas called the Web. There is no stadium to wall off the professionals and keep the amateurs outside and people are running all over the field!
The demand for professional-level news hasn’t diminished but it’s become harder to find. Actually, scratch that, it hasn’t become harder to find, but the way people find and consume information is different on the Web.
Since everything is seemingly in one place, competition for attention is fierce and the basis for winning it has shifted away from ability alone, and now speed, accessibility, interaction and personal relationships count too.
The other big difference is cultural and stems from the word ‘privilege’. The option to play sports for a living at any level is considered just that, a magical chance to do something you love even though it may not be such a dream life to actually live it.
I think the same attitude might ultimately be needed in journalism as the distribution of revenues starts to resemble professional sports (basically a steep long tail curve).
A very small group of soccer players and an even smaller number of soccer clubs collect most of the financial spoils from the sport by being the absolute best at what they do. For their entire career, players are generally deployed in their single best position where they can contribute most to helping the team succeed.
Successful soccer clubs have strength in depth throughout the squad and although many journalists can and do specialize, content in newspapers is not structured this way.
Dan Lewis has a very thoughtful dissection of newspaper content up on Center Networks that talks about the horizontal nature of newspaper content versus the deep content verticals found online (as well as making several other insightful observations and proposing some ambitious solutions for news organizations). I highly recommend reading it.
Professional sports clubs recognize that not all customers are the same and sell tickets at many levels from obstructed views or back rows to corporate boxes. It’s the same idea as flying first class versus coach.
An important point to note is that while everyone gets to watch the same game, the corporate box customers are paying significantly more to get something that is inextricably linked to the game but is ultimately not the game itself.
As a side note, professional sports teams also sell advertising around the field and monetize the stadium for non-sporting corporate and personal events. They also have fan clubs that allow their most loyal followers to identify themselves and give them the opportunity to buy other products and services they want.
Newspapers do have multiple revenue streams but it feels much more like an afterthought. In contrast, sports teams seem to intentionally know more about their customers and compete for their spending in many different markets around the assets they own rather than trying to monetize them directly.
As far as I’m aware, all of this is managed completely independently and without requiring the approval of the sporting side of operations.
For newspapers, it seems to be as much a psychological problem of understanding the role of the content that they continue to think is their raison d’etre as it is a business strategy and execution problem.
Another interesting point of comparison with sports teams is the fact that although sports fans might have a (potentially very strong) emotional attachment with a particular club, they pay to see games, players and great plays, including those by players on other teams.
However, sports fans do not pay admittance to look at and admire the stadium. That might happen on the first visit or after a major renovation but beyond that it’s taken for granted and it doesn’t matter anymore.
This should all be great news for journalists, at least the very best in their respective niches. It used to be that a newspaper would act as a stamp of authority for journalists but for the very best journalists I think this will increasingly work in reverse.
Journalists can be the stars that people follow, even if all of their followers do not pay for all of their content directly. While there is already an abundance of content online, there will always be a relative scarcity of excellence – yup, the same as in sports.
Posted on March 10, 2009
My name is Phillip Baker and this is my personal blog about finding value in a world of free information.