Keeping Score

More on sports blogging

In another post, I was talking about sports bloggers getting press credentials to sporting events. The latest twist on this, is an "official" sports reporter who was blogging from a college baseball game and was ejected from the press box for doing so. The N.C.A.A. said it did this because it doesn't want reporters blogging about game action - however, reporters "may blog about the atmosphere, crowd and other details during a game." Now The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky is thinking of suing the N.C.A.A. This will be an interesting case - there are lots of elements to it - the biggest one is television contracts and who has the right to report live game action. And you can read much more on this over at Sports Law Blog here and here

So when is it the right time in your life to pose nude?

According to Olympic medalist Amanda Beard, the time was now as she explains to ESPN's Sage Steele on a video you can watch from Gene Wojciechowski's column . Wojciechowski also weighs in on Beard's decision to show all in Playboy. So what to make of all this? Is it empowering to women? Or just sad that a woman athlete has to strip down to earn some $$ because the sport she competes in can't support her financially? It's hard to listen to her tell Steele that she feels she is doing a good thing because she is showing how a body can be health and athletic. But who is looking at this naked healthy body? Beard needs to be a bit realistic about the context of Playboy.  It is what it is - don't try to cloak it as something it isn't. Most of the readers are not going to have any epiphanies about the female shape or women athletes as they flip through the pages before she's tossed into the recycling bin.

Niche sport blogs

I check out Poynter.org daily - mainly for Romenesko's media page. Today I saw a piece about blogs that cover certain sports in detail - usually sports that are ignored by the mainstream press. The example he gives is local cycling. Sometimes I think this is the future for coverage of women's sports - just look at all the blogs and message boards devoted to women's basketball where fans congregate for news, gossip, etc. These sites fill a hole out there - while the national press may cover or air a WNBA game here or there or a college game - they are usually straight game stories - for the most part, there is a dearth of feature reporting and commentary/opinion writing on the sport. Granted many of these sites rely on mainstream sports reporting for the basic news - they cobble together what's out there and expand it.

There was also another piece on the Poynter site about bloggers getting press credentials - the focus of the piece is the NHL - some teams are welcoming the additional coverage and issuing media passes to bloggers, others are not. As the writer Steve Klein argues, "For a professional sport that often has to go begging for coverage, blogs should be a godsend."

Getting women athletes on TV

The Salt Lake Tribune ran a profile on Lisa Mitzel, a former All-American gymnast, who has started the nonprofit organization called Athletic Girl Productions.

According to the article, "Izzi says her main initiative is to increase exposure for positive female role models in sports through media channels including the Web site and TV. She is gathering funds and packaging together a cable TV show highlighting women in sports."

Her motivation came from some thesis research where she realized the dearth of women athletes on TV and decided to try to do something about it.

Needed a new look

So I tweaked the color scheme/layout of blog. I thought the end of the spring semester was going to open up my schedule a bit to focus more on the blog, but it's been a busy past month. I was suppose to go to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony to see long-time women's basketball journalist Mel Greenberg's induction, but I had to cancel due to some travel complications but fans can read about events here. Meanwhile I'm working on a journal deadline and as always, the book.