
The math of media bosses who told Deadspin to ‘stick to sports’ doesn’t add up - Reventlov
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2019-11-01/deadspin-stick-to-sports-bad-math
======
aristophenes
I am largely confused about this whole discussion. Why are we trying to figure
out if the Deadspin bosses are justified in whether they want their writers to
write about sports related things?

This isn't about free speech. Each one of the writers has the ability to write
to their own blog, to tweet whatever they want. This is about some writers
insisting that a company pays them money to write about whatever the writers
want, instead of writing about what the people who are paying them want. That
seems fine if the company agrees. I think some companies make that work, might
even be a good idea. But if the company doesn't agree, well, I mean that's ok
too, right? And the writers can quit if they don't like it (as they appear to
have done), and good for them if they can achieve their vision elsewhere.

I think it would be wrong if the management was asking them to deceive people,
or break laws. But presumably writing about sports is not abhorrent to any of
the writers. Why all of a sudden did it become noble to tell your boss that
they can't tell you what to do at work, for work related activities?

Am I a freedom fighter if I tell my boss that I'm not going to code that thing
they want to get out the door next week, I have a pet project that I really
like, and then me and all my other co-workers go on strike when I can't do
that?

~~~
guelo
Management can tell employees to do whatever they want, but employees can also
tell management to shove it and quit. What's wrong with that?

~~~
xibalba
Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in
confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it
shouldn't be.

I suspect this story has such legs because it is about the media. There is
nothing the media likes to talk about more than itself, particularly when it
is about front-liners defying execs.

~~~
msbarnett
> Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in
> confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it
> shouldn't be.

Because of the aspect of this that GP is ignoring: there's a third-party in
all of this who are the ones making a lot of the noise about it: _the
audience_.

Deadspin built a dedicated following among readers who very much enjoyed their
eclectic, not just sports focus (as somewhat born out by this analysis showing
that the non-sports content performs at least as well as, if not ouright
outperforming, the sports content).

The writers, and long-serving editor Barry Petchesky, are very much aware of
this, and a lot of the noise about the "stick to sports" mandate is just how
_idiotic_ this is, given that it erases the very differentiating quality that
keeps the Deadspin audience coming to Deadspin, and not SBNation, or ESPN, or
BarstoolSports, or the million other competitors.

This isn't so much "Bosses mandated X, and entitled employees just don't want
to do X" as "Out-of-touch new Bosses mandated X, and employees rightly pointed
out that this was going to kneecap the business, and then quit rather than
circle their way down the drain"

------
dlbucci
I'm surprised commenters here seem to be siding with management when:

* They only bought the site about a year ago.

* They've replaced a number of women/minority executives with white, male, nepotism hires.

* The editorial mandate to "stick to sports" violates the CBA with the GMG Union, which prohibits the owners from having editorial say.

* There have been numerous complaints from both writers and commenters on the site about the decline in the quality of the content since the takeover.

* About a week ago, obnoxious, auto-playing, with-sound video ads starting covering every article, and the comments in every section complained about them. The writers made a post asking for feedback, which management removed and only then said "stick to sports".

I mean really, it just takes a quick look at the comment section of any
article to see how mad the commenters have been about this issue. Oh wait,
management removed the comments on Deadspin (and no other kinja site). They
also drove away some of the most popular writers on the site, like Drew
Magary, and that's where the complaints about the decline in quality come
from. The whole thing has just been incompetent mismanagement for a long time,
and as a long-time reader, has been one of the biggest bummers since Joystiq
was shuttered.

~~~
ivanech
Editorial independence is section VIII in CBA [pdf]:
[https://www.wgaeast.org/wp-
content/uploads/sites/4/2019/04/G...](https://www.wgaeast.org/wp-
content/uploads/sites/4/2019/04/GMG-Agreement-2019-2022.pdf)

This is what makes the situation special. It's in the contract.

------
rancor
OK. Leaving aside that the whole article kind of smells of self-justification
over the approach of the LA Times itself to reporting actual news vs. opinion,
there's a mathematical issue here. If Deadspin were relatively unpopular with
sports fans, their non-sports content would naturally be relatively popular
due to it's general audience appeal. And even if this weren't true, most fans
care about their particular sport, meaning that the non-sports articles will
by the same logic have better viewership even if they are less popular with
every given segment of the Deadspin audience. Thus, the content can be "well
received" without actually building the site's target audience(s), the
targeted audience(s) for which their advertisers pay an (assumed) premium.

~~~
msbarnett
> the targeted audience(s) for which their advertisers pay an (assumed)
> premium.

Online advertising does not work this way, and has not for years. Advertisers
bid on the right to show users an ad, per ad, based on all of the surveilled
data known about that user. Deadspin will get the best bid price per-user
regardless of what demographic the winning advertiser was targeting.

------
tracker1
G/O Media has several brands that already do woke journalism. How many do they
need for this? How many concentrate on sports exclusively? To use a sports
metaphore, it's about zone coverage.

As I said on prior posts... Deadspin should stick to sports for the same
reason Pizza Hut doesn't sell Tacos. Coverage across brand identities. Even if
Tacos may make more money than Pizza in aggregate, they aren't there to sell
Tacos.

In the end, it doesn't matter if Deadspin may individually make a little more
money. How much less are they making by effectively turning away potential
fans of sports by bringing in stories on identity politics? The population is
roughly 1/3 left, 1/3 centrist and 1/3 right. As it stands they are alienating
1/3 to 2/3 of their potential audience.

~~~
papln
Unfortunately choice of example. Pizza Hut does sell tacos.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum!_Brands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum!_Brands)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=joint+pizza+hut+taco+bell&tb...](https://www.google.com/search?q=joint+pizza+hut+taco+bell&tbm=isch)

As does Jack-in-the-Box

[https://www.jackinthebox.com/food/taco-and-sides/two-
tacos](https://www.jackinthebox.com/food/taco-and-sides/two-tacos)

~~~
thaumasiotes
Huh? The claim "Pizza Hut doesn't sell tacos because that is what the Taco
Bell brand is for" is supported, not undermined, by the fact that Pizza Hut
locations use explicit Taco Bell branding when they decide they want to sell
tacos in addition to pizza.

------
kaikai
The reason this is a story is that it's calling out the bullshit reasoning of
management, not that management doesn't have a right to decide the content of
their media properties. Many of us have sat through meetings with leadership
who are endlessly rationalizing their decisions with crappy data, and felt the
frustration that comes with being able to see through the half-truths. This
article is interesting because they did some research and called their bluff
with actual numbers.

~~~
lefstathiou
Welcome to the 21st century where you can have valid reasons but face the
endless threat of bad press and litigation for giving them. Almost every
manager and CEO I know is afraid to give constructive feedback in employee
reviews. The fact that they came up with some bs explanation with holes isn’t
news to me. Imagine what the press would be if they said “I told them to do
their f’n job 5x and they didn’t”

~~~
drewbug01
> Welcome to the 21st century where you can have valid reasons but face the
> endless threat of bad press and litigation for giving them

These are both strong indicators that the reasons are not valid.

------
CodeBeater
This whole thing could be turned into a great opportunity to start a sister
website for content not related to sports.

I mean, they already got the publicity about it, right? They can even play a
"by the writers" angle.

------
zone411
No mention of RPM? I have a site with a variety of topics and political pages
have worse RPM than almost all other topics.

------
throwGuardian
So unfair! If only a sports publication left it's writers alone to wander off
onto non-sports related politics[1], ignoring the publisher's plan &
repeatedly digressing from the job they were hired to do, the world would be a
better place.

[1]: [https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/dont-doubt-what-you-saw-
wi...](https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/dont-doubt-what-you-saw-with-your-
own-eyes-1831931203)

~~~
avs733
Read their top ten most visited stories list [1] and tell me how many of those
are 'sticking to sports.' You don't just get to assume reality...data is a
thing and can be used to evaluate statements of what is true.

[1] [https://deadspin.com/the-top-10-most-visited-deadspin-
storie...](https://deadspin.com/the-top-10-most-visited-deadspin-stories-of-
the-deadspi-5438483)

(A year I arbitrarily picked because it was on top of google)

~~~
rdlecler1
The new owners took over this year. Not 2010. They paid for the acquisition
and it’s for THEM to decide what editorial direction the publication should
take, not the journalists. Frankly, I personally don’t want politics and
culture in everything I read and that can be a feature, not a bug.

~~~
avs733
Given the multiple areas of content it would perhaps be better to look at the
writers and the tone and the perspective of irreverence as the feature and, in
fact, the the value. We are about to find out what is the true asset of
deadspin...the name and the sports articles of the writers and their broad
interests. If nothing it'll be an interesting experiment.

You may not want a product, but if you bought the company that makes it,
successfully, and tell them to suddenly produce something else you may well
end up look like a stupid investor.

~~~
rdlecler1
I’m going to bet they saw an established brand and audience but a company that
needed to be turned around in a number of ways, and I bet it didn’t make money
before.

