Small Town Sports Media: "It's Good"

[Dirtbag59]

Lately I've gotten into the habit of listening to AM radio and of the shows I've listened to one of them has been the Herd (yes I know). However among the many things said on the show one thing really struck a chord with me. On the show Cowherd referred to how in bigger media markets you get more sources of media that are willing to criticize, especially when it comes to local sports team. However in small towns you basically get spoonfed how good everything is regardless of the on field product.

Cowherd also said that based on his experience in small town media he said that usually if you say anything bad about the local team you're basically putting your career on the line because a lot of the time coaches in small town will take away your press pass and if it comes to, alienate anyone that works for the same outfit as you.

I think I see examples of this mostly in local SEC shows. I sware if I only watched these local programs I would think that most of these schools that aren't even ranked in the top 25 could win a national championship. Fran Charles talked about Tennessee after their week 1 win against a powderpuff as if the team was poised to play in a BCS game.

In short the one phrase that used to drive me crazy when watching these shows was the utter abuse of the work "good." Team looses but hey we did "some good things, maybe didn't play the way we wanted but our defense came out and played good, the QB made good decisions, special teams played good blah blah blah."

Anyway I was wondering if I was the only one that had noticed the fact that local media sources almost never criticize local teams unless they're in a major market.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag359

Lately I've gotten into the habit of listening to AM radio and of the shows I've listened to one of them has been the Herd (yes I know). However among the many things said on the show one thing really struck a chord with me. On the show Cowherd referred to how in bigger media markets you get more sources of media that are willing to criticize, especially when it comes to local sports team. However in small towns you basically get spoonfed how good everything is regardless of the on field product.

Cowherd also said that based on his experience in small town media he said that usually if you say anything bad about the local team you're basically putting your career on the line because a lot of the time coaches in small town will take away your press pass and if it comes to, alienate anyone that works for the same outfit as you.

I think I see examples of this mostly in local SEC shows. I sware if I only watched these local programs I would think that most of these schools that aren't even ranked in the top 25 could win a national championship. Fran Charles talked about Tennessee after their week 1 win against a powderpuff as if the team was poised to play in a BCS game.

In short the one phrase that used to drive me crazy when watching these shows was the utter abuse of the work "good." Team looses but hey we did "some good things, maybe didn't play the way we wanted but our defense came out and played good, the QB made good decisions, special teams played good blah blah blah."

Anyway I was wondering if I was the only one that had noticed the fact that local media sources almost never criticize local teams unless they're in a major market.

Well, I've never been part of "small town" media. But having worked both on a local and a national scale, I would say he is 100% correct that on a local scale you have to tread very, very carefully with sports teams. I know colleagues of mine who said the wrong thing to the wrong people and it screwed us over as a company for years.