It’s been a whirlwind, with more components to the journey than I could have imagined. But if I had to note the absolute most striking aspect of the feedback I’ve gotten, it’s this ...
It's obviously not an apples to apples comparison, but your description kind of reminded me of how I feel about teaching. There are wonderful things about teaching when it's going well, but so much of it is soul-crushing. And, like sports media, technology has only made it worse. I did a stint of teaching before smart phones and after...Now, the kids are glued to their phones, plus if you screw up or lose your cool a kid can video you having a meltdown and sharing it online. And like beat writing, teaching is a total burnout job (I think something like over 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years).
And it's okay for you to pine for an earlier era. I've been paid a very small amount monthly to review movies for a local magazine since 2004. I MOST DEFINITELY pine for an era when lots of publications had full-time movie critics/entertainment writers.
Hi (former?) sports television producer checking in here.
Everything in here resonates so well and in a way I could never articulate. The one thing I want to add is this.
People love sports. For so many, sport is the escape from everything that's going poorly in their lives - stress, work, etc.
But when sport is your vocation - and it's going poorly - the well is poisoned. There's no escape and you just spiral into a deeper and deeper depression.
There are many positives to working in sport. It's cool! It has social cred! A million kids would want to do your job! And for free! You're living the dream!
But the paymasters (mine was Fox Sports) know that there a million kids out there that would do your job for free. Thus, wages are suppressed and the content machine just grinds you into dust.
You should read David Graeber's wonderful book "Bullshit Jobs". It details at length the quiet desperation of people doing jobs they know don't make sense or are harmful.
This is excellent stuff, Ethan. I strive to create on a platform that relieves the pressure that the current NBA media landscape creates. Growing up I dreamed to be one of those writers in the room, dreamed of the access and the intel and the relationships with the players. Now, I know that covering the NBA in the ways that keep us sane is the real goal. In a rat race to be first, to meet the demands of the organization, the most important thing is to create content in a way that fulfills us.
Covering the NBA seems miserable. The players don't seem particularly enjoyable to be around. You aren't allowed to be even slightly critical. The stuff you write are basically press releases.
This part really stuck out to me: "Many years later, the late former NBA commissioner David Stern would chide me over my softness in this respect, scolding me in phone conversations with, “That’s why we fired you.” Though technically I quit, this was a distinction without a difference to David. Either way I couldn’t cut it. The job had chewed me up."
Something that occurred to me reading this after suffering through a particularly frustrating job myself, is that when people create the parameters of their own job they are generally better paid but also have made the choice more fully themselves. Look at a start up, or even the NBA commissioner to some extent. Those same people have expectations that are impossible to meet for someone paid less than one tenth of what they make with no control over their own job parameters.
As an outsider, one has to come into a job and try to match the energy of that company's most energized people - the founders, the leaders, the well paid. Not really possible at large, I would argue. And when that inevitably ends with a vacancy at the position it's often viewed as "not cutting it" when in reality it's that an outsider never made sense for a position so rooted in effort that excludes other elements of life. It was really the nature of the low level employee-position match that couldn't cut it.
😂 I graduated from uni last December majoring in Political Science. I said screw that and pursued a sports journalism career primarily with the intent to be like you and the guys from the Athletic Bay Area. Then months went by of being ghosted by hundreds of companies, and the ones that id offer jobs offered pennies. So I changed my mind again and now I’m studying for the LSAT😂. Glad to know there are other people who felt the stress of entering sports media in today’s age. I got cold feet pretty damn quick.
I only had to look up 3 words this time! And I think I have a good vocabulary.
I grew up reading Jim Murray (and early Scott Ostler) columns in the LA Times. And SI of course, in its heyday. When I got to Cal, I started reading the Sporting Green - and Herb Caen - and again was rewarded with outstanding sports journalism from a stable of great sportswriters. I simply can’t stomach the landscape now. Thank goodness for The Athletic.
The old adage “garbage in garbage out” certainly applies here. So many people seem perfectly fine with ingesting - and regurgitating - pure crap. I simply don’t have time for it. My time is too valuable. And as always, those who seek quality journalism will be rewarded. It exists and it’s extremely satisfying. Settling for less is ignorant at best and lazy at worst.
Thanks for sharing these stories Ethan. Real good stuff. You’ve got a good thing going.
one of your best articles ethan. showing how the encroaching forces on sports are a microcosm of similar ones on social and political life is a good angle for this space
My favorite period of time to be an NBA fan was in the heyday of blogs. There were so many great and creative NBA blogs, back when analytics was still mostly considered NBA counterculture and not as widely accepted as it is today. One of my favorite amongst them was Hoopspeak, which I am reasonably certain was founded by Ethan and another writer. As I started to realize that today's post was going to take us through Ethan's career so far, I was very excited to see what you would say about Hoopspeak. I can't find it now, but there was a post comparing Kevin Durant's style of play to a dolphin that sticks out to me. Please consider this comment a vote in favor of future writing reflecting on the history of NBA blogging. It seems like the emergence of Substack could lead to a modern day resurgence of that type of very creative and insightful NBA writing.
Media and slaterization draws the panopticon uncomfortable tight for players, and creates more stressful demands on best writers to keep up. (And that it creates an opportunity for the most media savvy and borderline sociopathic to thrive).
Along those lines, I can imagine that doing pre and post game through zoom might actually be a good thing as it creates physical space for players and potentially reduces travel for writers.
Can you imagine a scenario where locker rooms stay closed and player/writer contact becomes exclusively through zoom? Would that be a good or bad thing?
What about sports opinion columnists? Is that still a thing? I never followed the NBA (because I'm from Pittsburgh; it's the one sport we don't have) but in other sports, I've seen beat reporters get promoted to columnist in the local paper. It seemed like an easier gig -- but hard to get because a couple of big names occupy the spots for many years.
It's obviously not an apples to apples comparison, but your description kind of reminded me of how I feel about teaching. There are wonderful things about teaching when it's going well, but so much of it is soul-crushing. And, like sports media, technology has only made it worse. I did a stint of teaching before smart phones and after...Now, the kids are glued to their phones, plus if you screw up or lose your cool a kid can video you having a meltdown and sharing it online. And like beat writing, teaching is a total burnout job (I think something like over 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years).
And it's okay for you to pine for an earlier era. I've been paid a very small amount monthly to review movies for a local magazine since 2004. I MOST DEFINITELY pine for an era when lots of publications had full-time movie critics/entertainment writers.
it's frightening to think about what jobs will exist for our children. how efficient the US economy will be in 2041. yikes.
Hi (former?) sports television producer checking in here.
Everything in here resonates so well and in a way I could never articulate. The one thing I want to add is this.
People love sports. For so many, sport is the escape from everything that's going poorly in their lives - stress, work, etc.
But when sport is your vocation - and it's going poorly - the well is poisoned. There's no escape and you just spiral into a deeper and deeper depression.
There are many positives to working in sport. It's cool! It has social cred! A million kids would want to do your job! And for free! You're living the dream!
But the paymasters (mine was Fox Sports) know that there a million kids out there that would do your job for free. Thus, wages are suppressed and the content machine just grinds you into dust.
You should read David Graeber's wonderful book "Bullshit Jobs". It details at length the quiet desperation of people doing jobs they know don't make sense or are harmful.
This is one of my favorite things I’ve read on substack.
This is excellent stuff, Ethan. I strive to create on a platform that relieves the pressure that the current NBA media landscape creates. Growing up I dreamed to be one of those writers in the room, dreamed of the access and the intel and the relationships with the players. Now, I know that covering the NBA in the ways that keep us sane is the real goal. In a rat race to be first, to meet the demands of the organization, the most important thing is to create content in a way that fulfills us.
Covering the NBA seems miserable. The players don't seem particularly enjoyable to be around. You aren't allowed to be even slightly critical. The stuff you write are basically press releases.
This part really stuck out to me: "Many years later, the late former NBA commissioner David Stern would chide me over my softness in this respect, scolding me in phone conversations with, “That’s why we fired you.” Though technically I quit, this was a distinction without a difference to David. Either way I couldn’t cut it. The job had chewed me up."
Something that occurred to me reading this after suffering through a particularly frustrating job myself, is that when people create the parameters of their own job they are generally better paid but also have made the choice more fully themselves. Look at a start up, or even the NBA commissioner to some extent. Those same people have expectations that are impossible to meet for someone paid less than one tenth of what they make with no control over their own job parameters.
As an outsider, one has to come into a job and try to match the energy of that company's most energized people - the founders, the leaders, the well paid. Not really possible at large, I would argue. And when that inevitably ends with a vacancy at the position it's often viewed as "not cutting it" when in reality it's that an outsider never made sense for a position so rooted in effort that excludes other elements of life. It was really the nature of the low level employee-position match that couldn't cut it.
😂 I graduated from uni last December majoring in Political Science. I said screw that and pursued a sports journalism career primarily with the intent to be like you and the guys from the Athletic Bay Area. Then months went by of being ghosted by hundreds of companies, and the ones that id offer jobs offered pennies. So I changed my mind again and now I’m studying for the LSAT😂. Glad to know there are other people who felt the stress of entering sports media in today’s age. I got cold feet pretty damn quick.
I only had to look up 3 words this time! And I think I have a good vocabulary.
I grew up reading Jim Murray (and early Scott Ostler) columns in the LA Times. And SI of course, in its heyday. When I got to Cal, I started reading the Sporting Green - and Herb Caen - and again was rewarded with outstanding sports journalism from a stable of great sportswriters. I simply can’t stomach the landscape now. Thank goodness for The Athletic.
The old adage “garbage in garbage out” certainly applies here. So many people seem perfectly fine with ingesting - and regurgitating - pure crap. I simply don’t have time for it. My time is too valuable. And as always, those who seek quality journalism will be rewarded. It exists and it’s extremely satisfying. Settling for less is ignorant at best and lazy at worst.
Thanks for sharing these stories Ethan. Real good stuff. You’ve got a good thing going.
This was a fantastic article. Convinced me to finally becoming a paying substacker. Very much appreciate the insight into "how the sausage is made."
one of your best articles ethan. showing how the encroaching forces on sports are a microcosm of similar ones on social and political life is a good angle for this space
My favorite period of time to be an NBA fan was in the heyday of blogs. There were so many great and creative NBA blogs, back when analytics was still mostly considered NBA counterculture and not as widely accepted as it is today. One of my favorite amongst them was Hoopspeak, which I am reasonably certain was founded by Ethan and another writer. As I started to realize that today's post was going to take us through Ethan's career so far, I was very excited to see what you would say about Hoopspeak. I can't find it now, but there was a post comparing Kevin Durant's style of play to a dolphin that sticks out to me. Please consider this comment a vote in favor of future writing reflecting on the history of NBA blogging. It seems like the emergence of Substack could lead to a modern day resurgence of that type of very creative and insightful NBA writing.
"Aimless dybbuk" ...
I can imagine the combination of social
Media and slaterization draws the panopticon uncomfortable tight for players, and creates more stressful demands on best writers to keep up. (And that it creates an opportunity for the most media savvy and borderline sociopathic to thrive).
Along those lines, I can imagine that doing pre and post game through zoom might actually be a good thing as it creates physical space for players and potentially reduces travel for writers.
Can you imagine a scenario where locker rooms stay closed and player/writer contact becomes exclusively through zoom? Would that be a good or bad thing?
What about sports opinion columnists? Is that still a thing? I never followed the NBA (because I'm from Pittsburgh; it's the one sport we don't have) but in other sports, I've seen beat reporters get promoted to columnist in the local paper. It seemed like an easier gig -- but hard to get because a couple of big names occupy the spots for many years.