Media Monster

Pulling for the Underdog – Why Indie Sports Blogs Matter More

The SportsGrid is a fairly comprehensive list of the movers and shakers involved in or around the games we love to watch, follow, and discuss. One of the seismic shifts that have occurred along with the march to digital media has been the rise of the independent sports blogger. When I dived into the writers list, I noticed that it tends to overlook a great deal of indie bloggers, many which have even larger followings than the beat writers for their respective teams.

The beats tend to focus on simply relaying information from the clubhouse, and the same factual information that anyone can gather from watching on television or reading the box scores. The press box is mostly an echo chamber. In larger markets, like New York and Los Angeles, the same information is gathered and disseminated by the same ten beat writers, often offered without additional value added. The fans look to the independent bloggers for in-depth analysis, discussion and community.

The ESPNs of the world are still the 300 lb gorillas of the industry, but the independent bloggers have made a serious dent around those fortresses. Realizing this, ESPN has started networks of their own by partnering with independent blogs, calling it the SweetSpot network.

Here are some of the most prominent independent bloggers and indie bloggers who have joined MSM networks notably missing from the SportsGrid:

Matthew Cerrone (pictured) of MetsBlog.com*

The biggest baseball blog on the web, and among the biggest sports blogs, garnering over five million page views per month. Matt has been covering the Mets at Metsblog since 2003 and frequently appears on SNY, the sports network of New York, whom he partnered with in 2007.

Tommy Dee of TheKnicksBlog.com

Tommy Dee has grown theKnicksBlog into the go-to destination for Knicks information virtually overnight.

Kevin Goldstein, Jeff Euston and John Perrotto of Baseball Prospectus

Baseball Prospectus is a leading platform for the Sabermetrics movement; their alumni include Nate Silver, who grew to national prominence with FiveThirtyEight.com. They’ve been pioneers in the movement that began with Bill James and others to try and come up with formulas to predict the trajectory of players and teams, using past performance as their guide.

John Manuel and Will Lingo of Baseball America

Baseball America is the de facto source for all minor league discussion, and many use it as the basis for who the future stars of baseball will be, based on their pre-draft rankings and minor league analysis.

Tyler Bleszinski of SBNation and Athletics Nation

Tyler is a pioneer in the baseball blogging world. He founded SBNation along with Markos Moulitsas in 2005, with his site Athletics Nation as the flagship. SBNation has grown into the largest sports blog network in the world; many of the sites within the network are among the most highly trafficked sites for their respective team.

Alex Belth of Bronx Banter

Alex’s Bronx Banter one of the longest running Yankee blog on the web. Alex started Bronx Banter in 2002. While being primarily a site to discuss the Evil Empire, Alex often sprinkles in posts about movies, music or other things outside of baseball that pique his interest.

Gerard Cosloy of Can’t Stop The Bleeding

Gerard is something of a punk rock legend in both the music business and sports blogging community. He managed Homestead records, which released classic albums by Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and many others. He produced a zine called Conflict in the 80s that was partially responsible for bringing Pavement to the masses. He later went on to work for the legendary Matador record label. Cosloy started Can’t Stop The Bleeding in 2004, which was a smarter, funnier Deadspin before there was a Deadspin.

Other notable bloggers worthy of SportsGrid recognition:

- Jeff Sullivan and Sky Kalkman of Beyond the Boxscore
- Derek Zumsteg of USS Mariner
- Ben Kabak, Joe Pawlikowski, and Mike Axisa of River Avenue Blues
- Eric Simon of Amazin Avenue
- Jason Fry and Greg Prince of Faith and Fear In Flushing
- Joe Janish of Mets Today
- Rich Lederer of Baseball Analysts
- Enrico Campitelli Jr. of The 700 Level
- Baseball Crank of Baseball Crank (Won’t reveal his real name but has been sports blogging before most sportswriters knew how to turn on a computer.)

*Note: Matthew Cerrone was added to the Power Grid before this post was published, but after the author first viewed this site. The rest of this list will be added to the Power Grid as well.

Anthony De Rosa is a veteran blogger who has been developing and providing consulting for new media since 1996. He posts his opinions on a variety of topics, social media and politics in particular, at soupsoup.tumblr.com.