Cool

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has his own blog. I think that this will be the wave of the future where articulate owners and players use the Internet to interact directly with the fans. Blogs offer no chance of having their words misquoted and also a forum to get their side of the story out directly to the fans. Woe to the sportswriter who crosses a owner or player with their own blog.

I wouldn't be surprised if Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling starts his own blog to make sure he isn't misquoted by the Boston media. Already Schilling is known to post on the Sons of Sam Horn website - so a blog would be the logical next step.

As owner and player blogs become more common - the traditional sports print media will be forced to become even better. Like any business - middlemen are only useful when they add value. If a sportswriter isn't able to add value with analysis or anecdote - then they will quickly be bypassed by the reader for the blogs of the players and owners so that the reader can get the information "virtually" first-hand. If enough readers begin by-passing certain writers who don't offer any value add - then that writer will soon be unemployed.

Blogs will greatly alter traditional sportswriting. In the past - the sportswriter had the advantage of being at the game and then having a forum to express their analysis of what happened. There was no competition for immediate analysis (except maybe sports talk radio). Today a person with HDTV and a blog can offer their analysis AS THE GAME IS BEING PLAYED. If the traditional sportswriter is not offering significant value add over what the guy with the blog is offering - then the traditional sportswriter will lose his audience. If the reader wants player quotes - then the reader will be able to check on players blogs.

Fans will soon be changing the way they get their sports information as surely as people switched from tap water to bottled water and basically for the same reason. People switched to bottled water because of real or perceived impurities in the tap water. Likewise if sportswriters allow impurities like wrong information, partial quotes taken out of context or just plain wrong analysis then the readers will switch over to the more "pure" source of player and owner blogs for direct information and sites of informed sports fans for their analysis and opinion.