BLOGS VS. THE SPORTS GUY

by Jacob, Vegas Watch

For years, the Sports Guy has been a very polarizing figure among the blogging world. More recently, however, it seems that there has been less mention of TSG, other than his occasional cat fights. And even then, the attention has been focused on anything but his writing.

To find out if anyone in the blogging world is even bothering to read Simmons anymore, I asked a series of questions to some writers here at EC, as well as blogger/media critic extraordinaire Awful Announcing.

Compared to two years ago, how often do you read TSG?

Slightly less: 50%, A lot less: 38%, The same: 12%

How much of an effect have sports blogs had on this? How much has been a progression of your own personal tastes?

Blogs; Huge: 50%, Slight: 38%, None: 12%
Personal tastes; Huge factor: 63%, Slight factor: 37%

Do you think the quality of TSG columns has declined over this period?

Yes, slightly: 65%, Yes, significantly: 21%, No: 14%

Jack Cobra: "He's a 'homer' writing a MSM blog...that he can't keep up daily."

DMt Shooter: “The worst thing to ever happen to Simmons was that New England teams won championships, combined with his growing popularity. Instead of keeping a voice that ordinary fans of other teams could identify with, these wins enabled his sense of entitlement and self-satisfaction, making his writing weaker, flabbier, formulaic."

KSK: "...while assf**k Patriot fans like Bill Simmons whine why no one likes them. My dislike of that man and his kind has no become completely irrational."

AA: “I think there was a period there when Bill Simmons lost touch of what his readers enjoyed and why his fans love him so much in the first place. I think the new site (with the Red Sox stuff separated out) is a huge step in the right direction. He's got links and YouTube clips up now, so I think he's embracing that he's a niche writer just like the rest of us bloggers.”

I'm doubt TSG's readership is down much, if at all - eight sports bloggers isn't exactly a random sampling. But among the people surveyed, readership was down pretty unanimously. So beyond the fact that they have their own sites, what do these people have in common? Well, they're all aware of sports blogs.

On Monday, Deadspin had 25 posts. With Leather had 10, TBL had 12, AA had 8 plus a live blog, and this site had 15. The Sports Guy's "blog" had one- about the Patriots, of course.

I've recently asked a couple friends if they know of Deadspin, and they hadn't heard of it. These are people who are huge sports fans, and they thoroughly enjoyed the Deadspin stuff that I showed them. Deadspin gets 250K hits a day, but it's just not in the mainstream consciousness the way ESPN is (obviously).

Point being, I really don't see how, all things equal, one would read TSG but not the blogs previously mentioned. I still think Simmons is an excellent writer, but is he really better than Will Leitch or Matt Ufford? To justify his popularity he would have to be much more talented than bloggers who write so much more than him every week, and I just have a hard time believing that to be true.

I've gotten completely off track here (not that there really was a track to begin with), but this survey confirmed exactly what I would have guessed, that people who have discovered the world of sports blogs don't read the Sports Guy nearly as much as they used to. And as sports blogs get bigger and bigger (which I would expect them to), it seems that both TSG and ESPN will continue to lose readers to blogs, as they will continue to offer both superior quality, and quantity.

Image: Slate