Q & A with Sports Media Columnist Neil Best

Billy Campione | Dec 05, 2008 | Comments 2

By Billy Campione

I have an immense interest in sports media, and no one covers it better than Neil Best of Newsday. His blog, WatchDog, is extremely popular and includes nuggets from the local New York market and the national media, as well. He was generous enough to give us some of his thoughts on postseason baseball ratings, the MLB Network, and TBS among other subjects.

FullCountPitch: With the ratings for postseason baseball games dropping since the mid 1990s, will there be financial ramifications for baseball, specifically in the broadcast rights contracts with the networks? Do you see any changes to the current system, such as playing afternoon playoff baseball again, in an attempt to jolt the ratings?

Neil Best: So far the slide in ratings for baseball (and pretty much everything else, other than the NFL) has not had a huge negative affect on rights fees. One reason is that sports has slid less than entertainment programming. Another is that sports is considered much more DVR-proof than entertainment programming. But moving playoff games to the afternoon would not help ratings. Ratings are much worse in the afternoon, which is why the games are played so late in the evening in the first place.

FCP: I have heard that TBS feels there is a bias against their baseball coverage in the media. Is that a fair statement? Have they been justifiably crucified or has it been too harsh?

NB: Well, they certainly have taken major criticism from me and others in my line of work, especially Chip Caray. I thought TBS did a better job in 2008 than in ’07 – especially in the studio – and adding Ron Darling is a big help, because he is excellent. I assume TBS will improve as it gains more experience, but I’m not sure about Chip. It’s not that I hate his work or anything, but it does often seem like he’s doing a parody of a stereotypical play-by-play man.

FCP: Unlike baseball, the NFL is appointment TV for many Americans, so the NFL Network can live off of stats, analysis and one weekly game. Fox is discussing dropping its baseball pregame show. If a major network can’t support a brief rundown of the major baseball highlights and news, do you think the MLB Network can be successful? What will the new network offer to get more viewers and ad revenue? Will we ever see playoff games on the MLB Network?

NB: Someday of course playoff games could be on the MLB Network, and on the NFL Network, as the model of TV as we have known it continues to evolve rapidly. The Internet is changing everything in media and will continue to do so for the rest of my lifetime. The challenge for the MLB Network, as you indicated, is baseball is not as popular as football. But the huge advantage they have is the amount of stuff going on on any given in-season day and night. Basically they are planning to build the channel around a studio show that is like ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight,” only expanded five or six or sevenfold.

FCP: Many of your colleagues frequently write about the conflict of interest between networks and the leagues they broadcast. Do you see this as a problem? What about when the network is run by the team (YES, SNY) or the league (NFL, MLB)?

NB: Of course it’s a problem. But that horse is way, way out of the barn. There also are rampant conflicts of interest among journalists themselves as they work for both independent publications and the types of networks you mentioned above. There is no solution to any of this except for the consumers of information to understand the dynamics and go the caveat emptor route.

FCP: You don’t spend as much time other media analysts critiquing on air talent. I’d love to hear your opinions on a few on air personalities and the success, or lack thereof, of the network’s decision to group them together:
- The YES Network dynamic (many analysts working with one main play by play man)
- The three man booth on SNY
- The Sunday Night Baseball team of Morgan and Miller
- The Baseball Tonight crew

If you would rather not comment, please explain why you have chosen to not be critical of the performance of many announcers and hosts.

NB: I prefer the SNY booth strategy to the YES one, but that only works because of how good the SNY trio is. I don’t dislike the Morgan/Miller duo as much as many people seem to, but, but neither am I a huge fan. I like the “Baseball Tonight” crew. It will be interesting to see how much the MLB Network hurts that show. I have no problem criticizing announcers and hosts when warranted. But it has been an intentional decision not to build the column and blog around that kind of content. There is plenty of critiquing going on in the media world, both in newspaper and blogs, so me picking my spots for such pieces isn’t depriving the world of many and varied opinions on such things. I have decided to focus more on articles that are informative in nature, using my access to get information readers might not otherwise have about the sports media/business world by bringing my beat writer background to the job. I think that offers a more valuable service than mere critiquing – not that there’s anything wrong with that – so that’s what I’ve focused on.

FCP: Yahoo Sports has been building a commanding lead over ESPN.com in unique hits, according to Comscore. Are you surprised that ESPN’s dominance has been, at least for now, brought down? Does this make you think that the TV side could one day be challenged?

NB: The TV side will not be challenged by an independent entity. The real challenge for ESPN is team- and league-owned outlets. Those unique hits stats are affected by an extremely complicated number of factors. I do not believe Yahoo.com is more popular than ESPN.com for basic sports information, no matter what that page views data shows.

FCP: A lot has been made of the friction between ESPN and Bill Simmons. Do you think he would ever leave the Worldwide Leader? Was the addition and heavy promotion of Rick Reilly a cause of the rift?

NB: I do think Bill will leave if he has a good opportunity. And I do think the addition, heavy promotion and ridonkulous pay of Rick Reilly is a factor in all this. Reilly is a good writer who does not come across well on TV, so his move from a company primarily known for a magazine to a company primarily known for TV channels was strange.

FCP: You have made frequents comments about how your blogging often irritates your family and takes up much of your time. While it may be tongue in cheek, why do you blog so frequently and how has blogging improved your newspaper writing?

NB: My family actually has been very understanding about my blogging, and Mrs. WatchDog does get the fact that it’s wise for a 48-year-old guy to stay relevant and current in our changing industry. It’s more me who gets bummed out sometimes about how addictive it is and how guilty I feel when I am not blogging. I blog frequently because I enjoy it, and the ego gratification of my page views totals is even more addictive than the actual blogging. How has blogging improved my newspaper writing? Are you kidding? Blogging has damaged my newspaper writing. Right now I am answering your questions, after which I will spend an hour on a live chat, and I have not even remotely begun to compile my Friday newspaper column, something that in the past I would have been well into thoroughly researching by now (Wednesday morning). I appreciate the fact many people enjoy the blog, but whenever they tell me so, I can’t help thinking: If I still were single and living in my apartment in Astoria and thus was able to accept the invitations to events I get every single day and/or attend actual sports events regularly, as opposed to being married with two daughters and two poodles in the suburbs, then I REALLY could do some damage with this friggin’ blog. But the family thing is a net positive, I suppose, so I’m not complaining. It’s important to have balance in life, right? Sometimes when I am on my knees scrubbing in and around the toilet on a Sunday morning while listening to Mike Francesa’s NFL show on the radio, I think to myself: “I have a weird, but balanced, life.”

FCP: You have also made many not so veiled comments about how you miss covering sports in person. From covering college hockey in Alaska to the New York Giants beat, the sports media gig thrust upon you or did you have some interest coming in? How much TV must you watch and radio must you listen to in order to be prepared?

NB: I do miss covering sports in person and do try to get out to events semi-regularly just to stay connected to people in and around the teams. I do this for mental health to get out of the basement and also because it is good for my job to actually see people in person and network. One thing that has helped me on the beat is that even though I came into it with 15-25 years less experience than my three main NY competitors, in 20 years of being a non-media writer I got to know pretty much everyone in NY sports media more as a friend/colleague than a media critic. That helps with information, but it makes it awkward sometimes to praise or criticize friends. By far the biggest thing I miss about being a beat writer is exactly what players say they miss when they retire: the camaraderie of the press room, being on the road with colleagues, etc. Having said all that, I have zero regrets about coming to the media beat. I originally applied for the job when Stan Isaacs retired in the early 1990s and always thought I would be a good fit for it. When the editors decided to move my venerable predecessor, Steve Zipay. to the Rangers beat in 2005, I jumped at the opportunity. The blog only has added to the interestingness of the gig. One of the best things about it is that I no longer have to fake having something in common with Jeremy Shockey or Tom Coughlin to do the faux-relationship-building necessary to effective beat reporting. Now the people I deal with – from executives to producers to on-air types to p.r. people – tend to be around my age and often from a similar background – i.e. Long Island in the baby boomer era. I pick my spots watching TV and listening to radio. I watch/listen a lot, for sure, but I also rely on tips from people who saw or heard things I did not. The Internet is extremely helpful in this regard, obviously. But there certainly are times when there is a big game on and I am watching “30 Rock” or “Entourage” or something and thinking, “It’s my job to watch the game, and my readers are watching the game, but I am not. Which is weird, right? I have said this often since taking the beat: I wish I had this job when I was 12, because when I was 12 I wanted to watch every sports event on TV, and when I was 12 you physically COULD watch every sports event on TV.

Again, great thanks to Neil. Read his column and his blog often. He always has an interesting take on sports and media.

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