Some of you might’ve seen my tweet earlier this week, mildly “going off” about the current state of sports media.
What happened to just being a genuine, transparent person in sports media? Is that not possible anymore? Do we all need some shtick to take advantage of a passionate niche audience in a country in which the mood is tense and divided? That’s how we’re going to make our money now?
Level headed, honest writers/broadcasters are out there…but I rarely see them trending the way some of the hot take folks are. Just a tad discouraging, and maybe we should think about it before we consume the content we do, and make these polarizing figures incredible wealthy.
This hit me after 104.5 The Zone announced the release of Mark Howard and Kevin Ingram, both of whom were early influences on me as I regularly listened to Nashville sports talk at a time in my life when I was constantly bouncing around the idea of becoming a writer vs. not becoming a writer.
No reason has been given as to why this change was made, and to be fair, they rarely are. But, when the lineup was changed around, it certainly made it seem as though the station was going for a certain tone with the new morning show. They slotted Jason Martin in – I’m usually a fan of J-Mart, but first thing in the morning, I need something a little peppy. I don’t need some incredibly thought-provoking discussion, and I damn sure don’t want to hear about politics as I try to work myself up to tackle the day.
I don’t know how to really explain it if you’re not a regular listener of Nashville sports talk. It’s as if they saw the success that Clay Travis is having by galvanizing a certain sect of conservative sports fans, and thought “shit, we gotta get in on that.” J-Mart is a Clay Travis disciple. The problem is that it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like it’s genuinely about the sports talk and getting entertaining personalities on the air. It feels like the move is about delivering a polarizing message to get people emotional enough to tune in, call in, and tell their friends.
And, there’s another name that drove me to tweet that. Clay Travis. In his early days on Nashville sports talk, he was awesome. One of the funniest dudes on the air, and one of the most intelligent. Hell, I won’t lie – the dude was the biggest inspiration for me to start writing. And, as it were, I ended up writing two pieces that he ran on Outkick. Clay Travis cut me my first check for writing.
But, somewhere along the way, he became the antithesis of “woke ESPN.” He took advantage of the fact that the conservative fan base was passionate about getting progressive, or liberal, messages and ideals out of sports. He claims to want to eliminate politics in sports, and yet, he’s made millions off of blurring the lines between the two. It just doesn’t seem genuine. It seems like a big branding/marketing ploy. And, to be fair to Travis, it’s not just him – there seems to be a million Skip Baylesses, Stephen A. Smiths, and Colin Cowherds out there, who have found their lightning rod, and use it to take advantage of the emotional state of people for profit.
The goal doesn’t seem to be to inform and entertain anymore. It seems to be to manipulate people into putting eyes on the television screen or to tweeting and driving that engagement up. It’s a business. You hook people and the ad dollars go up – that simple.
And, just to be clear, I don’t appreciate ESPN doing this on the other side either. Some of it’s all so ridiculous.
This is just a corner of the media, though. I don’t have such specific examples of this in other news mediums, but doesn’t it feel like this is happening on a much grander scale than just sports? Alex Jones, anyone? Candace Owens, anyone? Jemele Hill? I know I’ve written a lot in my EIC Blogs about the prioritization of sensational stories in social media news feeds, and that happens because that’s what people engage with the most.
So, while a lot of people are throwing stones at the hot take guys, we need to take a little more responsibility in this issue ourselves.
As content consumers, my hope is that we’ll all be a little smarter, realize when someone is trying to play off of a divisive topic, and tune it out. Detect the bit and don’t allow its source to dictate your response. Reward the people who are actually doing a good, honest job – trust me, those people are out there.
Maybe then, we will stop being held prisoner to this sort of outlandish sensationalism.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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