5 minutes for bloggers in the box: A convo with Eric McErlain

June 18th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

You may know Eric McErlain, but if you don’t, you should. He’s the purveyor of the best hockey blog on the ‘Net at Off Wing Opinion, blogs for the FanHouse, and works as a columnist for NBC, all in dedication to a sport that is struggling to slowly regain its mainstream audience.

Eric has also been a blogger in the press box, and has worked with the Washington Capitals’ organization in developing guidelines for issuing credentials to bloggers. We’ve been rather steamed about the whole NCAA thing — we’ve actually heard more NCAA teams are going to start disallowing blogging next year — so when we read Eric’s thoughtful piece at AOL last week, we had a virtual sit-down. Here’s what turned up:

PostmanE: Eric, the other day you wrote that when you heard about the Courier Journal’s reporter getting kicked out the press box for blogging, you were “disappointed but not surprised.” I think most of the rest of us were both of those things, but only because we don’t have the experience you do. To be perfectly honest, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand the harm that could possibly be done by drawing more attention to the games. You seem to have a better handle on that stuff. What’s the issue?

EMc: When you live and breath this stuff every day, a news story like this has to be baffling. After all, live blogging seems to be such an obvious boon for team coverage, why in the world would anyone want to slap it down?

But while you and I take this stuff for granted, for a hierarchical organization like the NCAA, technology like this is a terribly disruptive force. When you overlay the fact that the NCAA has a number of pre-existing business relationships that it wants to protect, it gets a little easier to understand how and why this happened.

Think of it this way: Team X generates $Y Million from a combination of television and radio contracts. For decades, these business partners have enjoyed a certain type of exclusivity over the news that comes out of the arena/stadium. There are established standards and procedures that define exactly how you can use game highlights while the game is still going on — rules and regs mind you that even biggies like ESPN and the networks must observe. In respect to the radio rights holder, other outlets were limited to what sort of reports they could file during the game. To get an idea of what I’m talking about, listen to ESPN Radio’s Sunday afternoon show during the NFL season. Those guys calling into the studio aren’t allowed to do play-by-play and their reports reflect that.

Then bang, here’s the Internet, and the barriers to entry for real time distribution of audio, video, photography and text have dropped to near zero. All of a sudden, radio and television aren’t the only real-time games in town anymore — but those relationships still matter and not every organization has completely comprehended the opportunities that the Internet presents.

When confronted with an unknown, the knee jerk impulse is to defend their established business relationships whether they’re actually under threat or not. And that’s the why behind what happened (last) Sunday.

PostmanE: That obviously answers a lot, and continues from your column the other day. My question is: how does the NCAA get past this? Changing the rule seems to be the obvious thing to do, but is there a way to do that without getting carriers like ESPN and CBS all angry? Would the carriers get angry in the first place?

EMc: One thing is awfully clear to me. No matter what decision the NCAA makes in the short run, live blogging is going to win in the long term. In the past few days, I’ve gotten notes from individuals who have liveblogged college hockey and NHL games from the press box without incident and often with the active encouragement of team officials.

The change isn’t on the way, it’s already here. The question now becomes how quickly that change is going to be embraced, and who leverages it most to their advantage.

PostmanE: I think we agree — I think most people agree — that liveblogging is not only already here, but that it’s here to stay. So let’s go in a different direction. This is a purely subjective question, but how much should we care about liveblogs, anyway? Any way they can replace the traditional game wrap or recap post that is usually the way we do things now? Or are they just another method to try out while we adapt to this new sports world we live in? Which format do you prefer?

EMc: I don’t think the traditional post game story is ever going to be replaced. If anything, what we’re going to see is that folks who read the liveblog are that much more likely to be following the game in real time on television, and are the same folks who will be reading the recap the next day. One just naturally supplements the other, rather than replaces it.

The best live blogs are the ones that are able to communicate both the atmosphere inside the arena as well as some little details that often don’t get into the morning paper. In one particular instance last season, the Caps showed a pair of Orioles on the jumbotron in the middle of the game and they were met with a chorus of boos. That’s the kind of detail I’d like to pass on immediately without waiting. Another would be taking note of a relatively solid performance on the ice from a player who might not make it into the scoresheet, something you’d see out of a checking forward like Caps center Boyd Gordon.

PostmanE: I’m well aware that Deadspin’s Will holds this truth to be self-evident — that the press box sucks, anyway — and after covering Division I sports for two years from the press area, I have to say I agree with him. To me, the reporters’ grind totally negates the fun of “being there.” You blog, you report live from games … do you have more fun watching the game at home, or in the press box? Maybe I simply enjoy yelling at the TV, precisely for the reason that no one can hear me, and then getting everything in writing later.

EMc: As somebody who has owned a TiVo for more than seven years, I completely understand where Will is coming from — for example, it would have been impossible to write this post from the 2003 playoffs from the press box. But unlike you and Will, outside of a year as a stringer with the Washington Times a decade ago, I had no experience as a professional sports writer and had never been inside a press box before November 2005. Needless to say, I wanted to see things for myself and do some experimenting. By the end of the season, I’d purchased a digital camera that allowed me to take almost 2 hours of video in a sitting, and we were able to accomplish some interesting things with that — like an interview on fighting with Donald Brashear that I’m, sure peeled the paint off the walls of NHL HQ. And I haven’t even started talking about working with three photographers, who posted over 700 photos to the Web in a little over half a season.

However you slice it, my team accomplished a lot last year, and there’s no way we could have done it from the couch at home.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand exactly why some bloggers would never want to go inside the press box.The pressures Will talks about are real. Then again, if somebody wants the option, I don’t think any blogger should be afraid to send an email and apply for a credential, even if it’s only for one night. I’ll tell you one thing: Just hearing about how some sports writers want to keep bloggers out made me all the more determined to make the most out of last season. And I’m very excited at the prospect of what we’ll be able to accomplish now that my team knows the ropes so well.

As to when I have had the most fun, it wasn’t sitting in front of the TV, it’s when I’m interacting with my fellow bloggers and my readers. Whether it was watching the Caps-Thrashers fight with Liz Chang, shooting the breeze with Greg Wyshynski or just hosting an in-game chat on IM with some readers, those are the times I have the most fun watching hockey. What I’m determined to do next is bridge the gap between the fan at home and the locker room, and set up a system to take questions from fans and ask them after the game in the locker room and the head coach’s postgame press conference.

Needless to say, I think there’s still a lot of potential here, and I can’t wait for next season.