Bloggin for Dollars...Again

Yeah, it's been a few weeks.


No, I'm not apologizing.


If you're wondering what I've been doing since I last posted, here's a quick rundown:


* Predicting the outcome of the Pacuiao-Cotto fight with frightening accuracy. Click that link again if you think I'm joking. No I'm not clairvoyant. I just really know the sweet science... and sometimes I get lucky.


* Celebrating my 33rd at Babaluu with the Cuban Sunday crew.


* Getting fat on thanksgiving with some help from Harold, Garrett, and my sister.


* Getting ripped with fast company.


But the biggest reason for my absence from this space is that I'm blogging for dollars again, and this time it's about something I love.


The fight game.


This particular idea is three years in the making, a week old on the web and full of value added.


Like video!





Understand that managers in the moribund world of print media live and die by web stats, basing each writer's worth as a human being on the number of hits his or her stories attract. I haven't seen the numbers on this blog yet, but I do know that the Mayweather-Pacquiao post  has generated 48 published comments so far. Granted, it's not ESPN-level traffic (1698 comments and counting for their Mayweather-Pacman story), but its an insane about of feedback for a post on a sport that's supposed to have died five years ago.


MOREOVER... The video embedded above -- the one I KNOW you all clicked on is as of this very moment the third-most popular video at thestar.com.


!!!!


Barack Obama's Nobel speech has me beat, but for right now I'm enjoying my two-spot lead over Chris Bosh and his new tattoos.


Help me maintain it.


Click again. Comment often. 


The industry's in trouble and some folks are doing desperate things in order to survive.


I'm just trying to build a brand.


One click at a time.

Radio Hit -- Da Art Of Storytellin'

No, not Outkast and The Ruler, though I'm sure that song brings a lot of us back to simpler times (for me, senior year at the Harvard of the Midwest).

Instead, I'm talking about the half hour I spent in the studio this afternoon with Sarah Meehan, host of Underscore on Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius Channel 98). We've been trying to connect since late August, when producer Corey Erdman called to ask if I'd like to appear on the show to talk about "Long Shots," the narrative project that won me a National Newspaper Award a few years back.

Of course, I accepted the invitation, eager for any opportunity to talk to sports fans about how great I am. But when I stepped into the studio today the conversation quickly veered off into the handful of topics that give me greater pleasure than talking about myself does -- the relevance of newspaper sports sections, the effect of social media on the mainstream press, the future of sportswriting in a digital word.

In short, we explored the Art of Storytelling in a world that seems to have outgrown narrative.

If you missed the previous link to the podcast and want to hear my impassioned yet rational explanation of how narrative will never die, click here.

Could have talked all day, but I had to do all the damage I could in the allotted 25 minutes. I'm pretty sure I gave listeners something to think about without saying anything that'll get me fired. These days folks are sensitive about what employees say in public.

Anyway, if you're a media junkie or just a Morgan Campbell fan with time on your hands, please click the links and listen.

In the meantime, pardon me while I flop on the couch and continue my research for next week's assignment.

It's a rough life...

Spring Training, Day One -- Buggin Out

When you work in the newspaper business reminders accumulate daily that your way of life -- or at least your way of making a living -- is about to change profoundly.

Woke up this morning to learn that one more big city newspaper group is declaring bankruptcy. This time, it's Philly.

Still, life where I work hasn't been too bad by contrast. Thanks to the Star's sheer size (biggest paper in our market by far), the Canadian economy (which hasn't tanked as deeply as the U.S. economy... yet), and the 5 million or so employees who took buyouts last year, our place hasn't reached New York Times levels of poverty.

Yesterday I arrived in Tampa for Spring Training on a flight the company paid for, rented a car on the company credit card, and drove straight to the condo the company has rented through the end of March.

Yeah, life is still pretty good over here.

But look closely and you'll see subtle signs that the Rich Uncle's money is growing shorter.

Like the cockroach that scurried across the living room floor last night.



I was sorta surfing the internet and sort of watching the Oscars when I caught him in the corner of my right eye, a black dot emerging from the pantry and moving toward the front door.

He didn't move all that quickly, as though he were real comfortable here; as though his were his condo and we were just squatters. And he didn't seem scared. Even as I grabbed the Air Force One and cocked it back behind my head, he stood still, as if he knew I wasn't going to come into his house and disrespect him like this.

Like Hell.

I brought the AF-1 down hard across his back.

Whomp.

He disappeared briefly beneath my shoe. The floor vibrated. Dishes rattled on a nearby table.

And the cockroach?

He took my best shot and kept smiling. Stood there looking at me like, "Zat all you got?"

Naw, punk. I got some more for that behind.

Three quick ones.

Whomp. Whomp. Whomp.

The cockroach gloated no more.

I scooped him up and dropped him in the trash, then spent the rest of the night paranoid, Air Force One cocked like a hammer, just wishing some roach would walk his ass out into the living room looking for trouble.

Understand this:

I'm not scared of roaches.

I just hate them, just like my dad, and his dad before him.

I hate them for what they symbolize, which, more than anything, is poor hygiene, either in a household or in a building. I don't necessarily mean poverty -- I've lived in the hood and not had roaches.

I mean poor upkeep and a general lack of cleanliness.

I've been here before.

Grew up in a townhouse, and one year when I was real young a family from Jamaica moved in next door.

These. Folks. Were. Country.

They removed the panes and screens from their windows, so they just had holes in the side of their house. If the kids owned shoes, I didn't see them. And if they had indoor plumbing, nobody told their youngest boy, because he used the patch of asphalt in front of our house as his personal urinal.

A few weeks after they moved in, we started seeing roaches in our house. It took a while to figure out the bugs had hitched a ride from Ja. with the family next door, stowing away in their furniture and luggage.

So my pops headed next door to confront the neighbour about his bug problem, and precipitating the following exchange:

Pops: You need to do somethin bout these roaches, Willie. I'm tireda this mess!

WIllie: Easy nuh'mahn. Roo-chez hev'reh-weer bahk hoom. Dem like like flies in Jamaica.

Pops: N*gga, this ain't no GOT DAM Jamaica!

And neither is this.

But its symbolic of the times in this business. The last time the rich uncle sent me to Florida he put me up at the Hyatt. This time we're staying in a condo complex with roaches. A beautiful complex otherwise, but still one I share with that big bug I killed last night, plus a few thousand of his cousins.

Whatever fits the budget, I guess. We've all got to sacrifice in tough times.

But remind me to buy a roach trap tonight, and expense it later.

Another Bad Week....

.... For athletes and money. 

Don't misunderstand me, news from the newspaper industry -- whose money troubles have inspired several entries on this blog -- still stinks,  especially if you live in Boston or the Twin Cities. But at this point nobody expects newspapers to have cash, so reports of layoffs, buyouts and bankruptcies no longer surprise us.

Somehow, though we expect millionaire athletes to learn from the examples of those who squandered fortunes before them, even though a few times each year someone reminds us just how tough it can be to retire rich.

This week we have two examples.

First came news that the non-profit headed by former Olympic heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee is bleeding money, yet somehow managed to pay nearly half a million dollars in "consulting fees" to a for-profit outfit headed by her husband, Bob.

Predictably, the IRS is interested in what the Joyner-Kersees have been doing with all those tax-deductible donations that help fund their charity. And though the story makes clear that the government has been scrutinizing the Joyner-Kersees' tax returns (both charitable and private) for, Bob continues to claim nothing shady is happening, and that all the problems stem from simple ignorance of tax procedure.

Uh, ok.

But what about Floyd (No Money?) Mayweather?

Surely he and his advisers know better than than burn through the mountain of money he earned in the ring, right? Or at least they know to take care of the tax man before blowing seven figures shopping for jewelery..... right?

I mean, it's not like he's Evander Holyfield or something.

I didn't used to think so, but now it looks like The Pretty Boy and The Real Deal have more in common than catchy nicknames and Olympic Bronze medals.

According to this report from Boxingscene.com, the Pretty Boy owes the IRS more than $6 million. This from a man who grossed nearly $40 million in 2007 alone?

Now, I don't know how reliable this story is, partly because no mainstream media (I guess that would include me) have picked it up, and mainly because it lacks any type of attribution. 

Uncle Sam wants to shake the Pretty Boy down?

According to whom?

Did you talk to his lawyer?

His manager?

Did you speak to the IRS, or even a "source close to the story"?

We don't know because the story doesn't say.

But we do know this:

Though Mayweather claims to have become a hip-hop mogul since retiring last year, his rhyme skills wouldn't even pay my grocery bill.

Ouch.

A looming tax lein would explain why the  Pretty Boy announced last month he'd consider unretiring for a Pay Per View superfight with Manny Pacquiao.

It's a shame in a lot of ways.

That our generation's most dominant fighter might be broke.

That he may have to go back to work when he might genuinely want to stay retired.

That he might risk damaging his legacy and brittle hands to keep the taxman happy.

But his tax trouble keeps him out of the recording studio, we all win.

Detroit: Why Print?

In an effort to save paper and money the company has been asking us to cut back on printing documents. They've even plastered posters around the office that read "Why Print?"

Every time I see one the same question flashes across my mind:

Do they mean the verb or the medium?

If you guys needed any further confirmation of Nelson Muntz' proclamation about my ink-stained business, check out what's happening in Detroit.

That's right. No home delivery Monday through Wednesday, or on Saturday, but online "delivery" daily for those who subscribe.

If you work in this business (and I'm saying a quick prayer for you if you do), then you probably heard rumours about similar moves from different papers across the country. Late last week folks were telling me that the Tampa Tribune would publish online during the week and only print a paper on weekends.

Turns out it's not true, but the changes in Detroit are real and they're coming this spring.

Still not sure how I feel about them.

It stinks to see the Detroit Newspaper Agency (the company that runs the Detroit News and the Freep) lose nine percent of its staff, but those job losses seem modest compared with what's happening elsewhere in that city and in this industry.

I'm still ambivalent about this one.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT.....

Balls.

I have to applaud the folks in Detroit for making a bold move in the face of sliding circulation and slumping revenue. In this situation most newspapers choose one of two options:

They do nothing and go broke, or they cannibalize the product -- cutting staff, cutting budgets, cutting pages -- until they have a half-ass paper nobody wants to pay for anymore.

And they go broke.

There's still a very good chance the News and the Freep will go broke with this plan, but at least they've got one. We'll see in the spring whether they actually intend to enhance their digital coverage and make more of it available to subscribers, but I like that they're actually offering readers an alternative instead of simply gutting the print product while still asking us to pay full price for it.

And they're the first to do it.

That takes huevos.

STILL, I QUESTION

This reliance on the Internet to generate revenue when we still haven't figured out if the Internet will ever generate big revenue for newspapers.

I ALSO QUESTION

The dramatic cutback in circulation when after a quick chat I just had with someone who gets paid to worry about this stuff I learned that circulation (meaning putting newspapers in peoples hands) still brings in money. Clearly in an area as sprawling as Metro Detroit the cost of delivering those papers can skyrocket, and paper and ink are always expensive. But at this point do the avoided costs justify the lost revenue.

I don't know.

Admittedly, I'm not a math whiz. I got an A in the only college math class I ever took, but mainly because my homeboy's girlfriend (now wife) was a math major and "helped" me through all my take-home quizzes.

Still, I just don't know if the numbers will add up.

AND I'M SKEPTICAL ABOUT...

Detroit.

Don't misunderstand me. I love 313. Even interned there straight out of the U.

Detroit News.

In the summer of Eminem I was the only guy in the mainstream media writing about Slum Village. I ate at the IHOP on Jefferson and at Pizzapapalis in Greektown, and rode the slide on Belle Isle.

I love Detroit, even despite the steam that seeps out from every manhole cover, giving the city after dark a creepy, Gotham-esque feel.

But I'm struggling to see how this model works in that city.

I understand that both papers plan to print seven days a week, and both will be on sale at newsstands and convenience stores on days they don't deliver. And I can see a company still selling a lot of papers in a place like New York or Toronto, where you might pass a newsstand on while walking to the subway.

It's even better if, as I suggested last time, you can use public transit as a de facto delivery system, allowing commuters to pollinate the city with your paper.

But there is no train for commuters in Detroit.

Yes, I know all about the People Mover and I repeat, there is no train for commuters in Detroit.

Down there, everybody drives everywhere.

What are the chances that all these folks who no longer receive the paper at home will remember to buy one on their way to work?

About as slim as a newspaper's profit margin, I'd say.

So unless all these people are receiving and reading the online product, you wind up with a lot fewer eyeballs on your paper every day.

I'm sure advertisers will love that.

BUT...

Like everyone else with a stake in this industry, I'm waiting to see what happens in 313. If it's halfway successful, look for the model to spread to other markets.

And if it flops, who cares?

The medium's dying anyway, right?

One Take, One Link, One Endorsement

ONE TAKE -- OSCAR-PAC MAN POST MORTEM

So the final numbers are in from the De la Hoya/Pacquiao pay per view, and it was a stunning success. Looks like both the Golden Boy and his promotional company made enough to survive the impending depression.

Wait, no, it was a huge disappointment. Looks like Golden Boy Promotions (and the sport of boxing) are headed down the toilet, along with the American auto industry, the newspaper business and the governor of Illinois.

I'm with neither ESPN nor the L.A. Times on this one. Instead, I'm with Mos Def because "I find it distressing -- there's never no in between...."

Let's put this in perspective.

Is the 1.25 million pay per view buys Oscar and Pac Man logged last weekend impressive next to the 2.4 million Oscar and Floyd Mayweather put up in May 2007?

Not exactly.

But it's a huge number considering 1) Pacquiao wasn't exactly a celebrity to most Americans before this fight, and probably still isn't one now, and 2) everybody's broke.

The folks at the L.A. Times -- owned by the newly bankrupt Tribune Company -- know as well as anyone how little money people to spend these days. Given the depth of the economic doo doo we're in my hat's off to anyone who can sell a 1.25 million of anything, especially when that "anything" is a sport that even top fighters say is dying.

ONE LINK -- NASTY, DISGUSTING, GRAPHIC

So why is boxing dying?

Most folks think its because most members of that coveted 18-35 white male demographic would rather watch stuff like the link I'm about to show you. Basically, it depicts an unusually tall and rake-thin UFC fighter going shin-to-shin with an opponent and emerging with a badly broken leg.

Like, shattered shinbone.

Like he'll never walk normally again broken.

This is Joe Theismannesque, and then some.

You've been warned. This link is graphic. Don't click if you've just eaten.

But if you love disgusting, catastrophic sports injuries, then click here.

ONE ENDORSEMENT -- BLACK MILK

These days it seems everything I love is dying.

A medium (newspapers).

A sport (boxing).

An art form (hip-hop).

They say they come in threes, and as much as I'd hate to see hip hop die, I'll pull the plug and dig the grave myself if I hear too many more Auto Tuners. Seriously, who really wants to sound like T-Pain?

Anyway, dying don't mean dead, and there still are some talented folks keeping hip hop alive, and that leads me to this week's endorsement:

Black Milk.

A Detroit-based DJ/Producer/MC and heir apparent to the late J-Dilla, and he's making great music these days. Stumbled across some of his tracks online a couple months back and now he's in heavy rotation on my iPod.

My favourite so far:

A welcome antidote to the spreading T-Painification of hip hop, and as long as he's making music the art form will survive.

Not sure what he can do about boxing and daily papers though...

* Photo of Pac Man smashing Oscar originally appeared here.

Another Great Week for the Newspaper Industry

A discouraging last few days if you do what I do for a living.

If it didn't bother you to learn that the New York Times, the one paper that's always supposed to make money no matter what, had to mortgage their new building just to generate cash to run their business, then it had to bug you that the Chicago Tribune and gazillionaire owner Sam Zell filed for bankruptcy Monday.

Still, none of that news rattled me as much as learning Newsday eliminated 100 jobs and the position of general sports columnist. The guys at my favourite sports blog, The Big Lead, say Newsday is setting a trend and that soon we won't have any more general sports columnists.

Dammit!

That's exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up.


Actually, first I wanted to be Lisa Lisa's husband.

Then I wanted to be some kind of undersized pro athlete, before journalism finally found me and I decided one day I'd become a well read, well respected and well paid columnist, like these two guys.

But how many folks even know those two were even newspaper columnists? Newspaper nerds like me know that the guy on the right, fellow Medill alum Michael Wilbon, writes a sports column for the Washington Post. The guy on the left used to, until he joined a growing list of high profile columnists to leave the industry over the last few years.

Why the exodus?

Nelson Muntz can tell you.

Yep.

Circulation continues sliding, papers keep bleeding money and, as "The Wire" creator and former newspaperman David Simon so eloquently points out, there's no love in the industry anymore.

So yeah, Nelson's right. Newspapers are dying and we're not sure if you members of the Internet generation will even turn up for the funeral.

But does it have to come to that?

Isn't there a way, short of a government bailout, to rejuvenate the industry?

The World's Greatest Sportswriter thinks there is.

I'll offer you the ideas below, for free, because I care.

But if nobody takes my advice now, you'll have to bring me in as a consultant later, and I'm warning you now I don't work cheap. I'll need De La Hoya money for my bailout plan.

Actually, the ideas I'm about to outline all fall somewhere between "crazy" and "so crazy it just might work," but either way here are my four easy steps to saving -- or at least bringing a little cash into -- the newspaper industry.

1. I not to put too fine a point on this intricate, abstract matter, but PUT SOME DAMN ADS IN FRONT OF THE VIDEOS.

Newspaper people say they just can't squeeze the same ad revenue out of the Internet that they can out of the (increasingly less popular) printed page. I say they're not trying hard enough.

What about videos, guys?

ESPN's figured it out. Those little ads aren't intrusive, and as long as people click that video, the network might as well make a little extra money from it.

So print folks, what gives?

2. GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY NOW

Want to boost the readership numbers that in turn boost ad rates?

Give the paper away.

Next time you're on the Subway in Toronto, look around the car and count how many people are reading newspapers.

You'll find a bunch.

The problem if you love this dying medium is that three quarters of them are reading the free commuter dailies available outside every train station in the city.

Commuters prefer those papers for one reason:

The price.

It's not because they're easy-to-read tabloids, or because the populace has burned out their brains on TV and the Internet and subsequently can only handle the watered down, pre-digested news these papers provide.

People grab them because they're free.

If you don't believe me, leave a copy of the New York Times on a seat in a Toronto subway. If its not spoken for, someone will snatch it and start reading.

Because it's free.

Mainstream papers need to get a clue.

I don't mean doing away with subscriptions, or delivering the paper to homes that don't order it. And I'm not talking about setting up a booth in Union station and trying to force the paper on commuters both skeptical and pressed for time.

No, folks, I'm talking about guerrilla marketing.

I'm talking about sending people on to the subway, leaving a paper in each car.

Because it's free, someone will read.

Because it's on the subway, someone will leave it behind and someone else will read.

Now you've got five or 10 people reading each paper placed on the subway, and now you've got the readership boost you want to take to your advertisers.

Is any of that legal?

I don't know that it matters at this point. As De La Soul said, Stakes is High.

3. CO-OPERATE TO GRADUATE

Season two of "The Wire" and Stringer Bell's got a problem: low quality dope in the West Baltimore drug markets his operation controls. The fiends aren't happy, and they're not spending money. Stringer's not alone in this problem. This low-grade heroin is bleeding every dealer in West Baltimore, but only Stringer has the guts and foresight to look for a solution.

He connects with Proposition Joe, the East side kingpin and the only dealer in the city with a direct line to high-quality heroin. Together the two decide that all the big dealers in Baltimore will form a co-op. No more warring over drug corners and no more worrying about where the good stuff will come from. Everyone pools their money and, through Joe, buys straight from the source. When the price of the raw product drops everyone's profit rises. If the price rises everyone takes a hit.


So when news paper execs say they can't make the Internet profitable, I say they emulate String and Pro Joe and form a co-op.

My idea is far from fully formed, and I'll leave it to people wiser than I to refine the details, but the basic plan goes like this:

Newspapers have figured out that there's not much money in giving away the product for free online. They've also learned that there aren't many page views in restricting your web page to subscribers. It's easy, after all, to navigate to a competitors page and read for free. And the more papers that protect content for subscribers, the more cumbersome the Internet becomes for readers. We all like to read news from around the world, but few of us are prepared to subscribe to 50 papers to do it.

But what if we only had to subscribe once?

I'm thinking newspapers great and small across the continent form a co-op -- even team up with the Googles of the world if they have to -- and offer readers a deal:

Every paper worth reading is now password protected, from the New York Times to the Island Packet, and everything in between, but if you subscribe to the co-op you can access them all.

You don't charge people anything outrageous, because we've already established that everyone's favourite price is $free.99. Ask too much and suddenly people will decide they don't need "real" news anymore.

So you charge something reasonable, knowing that a subscriber anywhere helps newspapers everywhere.

4. GIVE EM THAT GOOD STUFF

Let's remember what prompted David Simon's drug dealers to form that co-op:

A dearth of quality product.

If you don't give people a reason to read, they won't do it, and none of the other stuff I outlined above will even matter.

But to give readers Prop Joe-quality content probably means concentrating a little less on the bottom line and focusing more hiring great story tellers and letting them tell great stories. Do that and you'll always have an audience.

I'm far from the first journalist to make this point, but it makes too much sense not to reiterate.

5. IF ALL ELSE FAILS.... OBAMANATE!





The numbers, pulled from this L.A. Times story, say it all:

The Atlanta paper initially printed an additional 55,000 copies to supplement its weekday press run of 375,000. But heavy sales forced the paper to print 150,000 more copies to meet demand.

USA Today boosted by 500,000 its weekday press run of roughly 2 million. The Washington Post, the fourth-largest paper by circulation, planned to print 350,000 papers and then sell them for $1.50, triple the regular newsstand price.

The Los Angeles Times printed 107,000 papers in addition to its weekday press run of 750,000, and sold some at retail outlets because copies were being pilfered from newsstands. Meanwhile, a steady stream of customers came to the Times' headquarters in downtown L.A. to buy copies of the paper.

Reading these stats it becomes clear to me that the first African-American/Biracial/Kenya-Kan-Hawaiian president holds the key to the newspaper industry's future.

If he can manage to win four or five elections a week for the next decade, newspapers will have cash to last them into the next century.

All we have to do is hope.