The changing of the guard in sports media

I don’t know about the rest of you, but whenever I see news about any sports it’s from an independent page, and whenever I listen for a footy opinion it’s from an independent page.

Traditional media in my opinion is too focussed on cash-grabbing with clickbait headlines, and rubbish articles. Don’t get me wrong there’s still good stuff done within that realm of traditional media, yet I’m finding myself slipping more and more towards podcasts, and social media pages talking sport.

Guys like Bloke in a bar, Hello Sport, the Guru, NRL Roast, the list goes on and on. I find myself reading more of Roast’s and hello sport’s articles than actual fox league articles. So the question I pose today is, is traditional media dying, and to what extent does independent media take over?

Firstly I doubt independent media can truly take over for another 20-30 years when a generation moves on where mainstream media is the only real source of news. A digital age in which all people have access to podcasts, and social media will first be the death of traditional media. In that mean time, If I was in those sectors I’d be revising my whole system to try and save my ass from falling out of business.

Independent media needs to be able to transition into a full time job. At the moment not many of these guys actually use their content as a full time source of income, until that point traditional media stands tall over these guys. It will happen though, as more people shift over to independent media, and more monetisation comes for these guys.

Unless Fox league, WWOS, SMH, The daily telegraph, and the likes can start to shift towards the younger demographics then they may find themselves obsolete in the future. It’s already clear the current perspective is negative towards mainstream journalists.

My suggestions would be as follows

• Get younger people into mainstream media, they know how to work their way around it, and they know what the rest of their generation enjoy in terms of content.

• Steer away from clickbait, It’s hard to not try and grab people with titles, but people just get annoyed when they see an interesting article that’s a bad read

• Spread across platforms, increase access to what you produce, a massive reason as to why people enjoy independent media is because of how accessible it is.

• News sites with a subscription fee, give people a proper reason to buy into it, exclusive articles, exclusive content with players, coaches etc. Don’t just say, pay $2 to read my articles or don’t read them, because guess what? People won’t read them.

• Hold yourselves accountable, most people respect someone who is able to lean into their mistakes.

• Finally, stop bagging out players at the smallest chance you get, this is a last minute edit to this article before I post it, Brandon Smith has been attacked by journalists for swearing, and potentially getting a $10000 fine. Since when has swearing been such a crime, just trying to chase a story isn’t on. We love a character until we have one

Not bagging out specific people, or specific media outlets, they all have their upsides, this is just my take on the current landscape of sports media.