Ask a Sportswriter/Internet Writer Person

We've talked about media companies and internet stuff here before, and as I transition away from recruiting, I thought perhaps y'all might be interested.

I write for land grant holy land (www.landgrantholyland), an Ohio State website. I write 2-5 articles a week, do a weekly podcast and edit the work of other writers. I also freelance across the SBN network, which is a collection of 300 or so sports websites. SBN, as a collective, is one of the largest sports websites on the internet. I am paid for my work.

From July-November, I almost exclusively write about college football, the main breadwinner for the website. I have written numerous stories about academic eligibility and the NCAA, the impact of college sports on the universities themselves, conference realignment, and more recently, college basketball.

I have written for newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as magazines, but most of my work is for online only sources. I've been doing this in some capacity for about 4 years.

If any of you are interested in college sports, sportswriting, the economics of getting paid to write stuff on the internet, the business of media, etc etc, maybe we can talk about it and it could be pretty okay.

When compared to typical office jobs, how does the career of an internet writer stand up in terms of salaries, benefits, and perks to being on the job (might make new friends in a cubicle environment, maybe find secondary work opportunities with people passing through the office, etc)?

When seeking typical payment for freelance writers, the dominant response is usually "it depends". What do you base your pricing on and is it competitive compared to other big names or are you still in the lower bracket?

Would you say that your time as a recruiter has been highly beneficial to your skills in finding clients and making an attractive written piece or has it been simply irrelevant to your new line of work?

Do you ever plan on broadening your writing to being more business-oriented or do you enjoy sticking to academic sports?

Synsensa said:

When compared to typical office jobs, how does the career of an internet writer stand up in terms of salaries, benefits, and perks to being on the job (might make new friends in a cubicle environment, maybe find secondary work opportunities with people passing through the office, etc)?

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For sports, and really for quite a few freelance writers, the pay is shockingly horrible. I am quitting my "day job' Jan 1 but will still work as a consultant on a limited basis to help cover the massive pay cut. I know many good internet journalists who travel dozens of times a year and make 25k, or maybe less. A LOT of people start at 22, 23, and then quit after they get married to get a job in marketing or business to make 'real money'. You don't get comfortable salaries until you're fairly high up the ladder.

The perks are nice. You get to "mostly" work from home, travel is comp, and you get to attend sporting events for free. The hours kind of suck though...lots of late night and weekend hours.

When seeking typical payment for freelance writers, the dominant response is usually "it depends". What do you base your pricing on and is it competitive compared to other big names or are you still in the lower bracket?

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What I charge depends on the topic and the news outlet. If ESPN or CBS asked me to write something, I'd take a lower rate. If it's for a much smaller outlet or for a boring story (come cover my middle school swim meet!), I charge more.

For my main website, I don't get paid per article. I get a salary each month + a % of total ad revenue. That isn't very uncommon for outlets that are more "start-upy".

If a newspaper asked me to cover a story for less than fifty bucks, I probably wouldn't do it.

Would you say that your time as a recruiter has been highly beneficial to your skills in finding clients and making an attractive written piece or has it been simply irrelevant to your new line of work?

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It's been helpful in the sense that I've had to develop sales skills, and knowing how to market yourself is *critical* in freelance writing. Finding clients is hard, and takes a long time. I've come into the industry as a bit of an outsider so any little edge I can get helps. Having more business exposure has helped me on the web administrator side though.

Do you ever plan on broadening your writing to being more business-oriented or do you enjoy sticking to academic sports?

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I love writing about sports, but my interests are varied. I wouldn't mind writing for Ed Weekly or the Chronicle of Higher Education and write about ed policy developments, or straight local news. There is a more vibrant buyers market for sports news though, so that's what I focus on. I still send pitches for articles outside that wheelhouse though.

Are much work do you put into pitches compared to the end result?

What do you let influence the amount of work you put into pitches?

Zelig said:

Are much work do you put into pitches compared to the end result?

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With a few exceptions, finding a possible buyer takes a lot more work than a pitch letter. My pitches are seldom more than two paragraphs, a few links, and a PDF with some clips. If the editor wants more information, he'll either call me or email me back, and then we get flesh out more details.

I think my pitch letter to the Chicago Sun-Time was longer than my first article for them, which I think was only about 150 words.

What do you let influence the amount of work you put into pitches?

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How badly I want the job, how much the job is projected to pay (either in money or in exposure), and who the editor is. In my line of work, one's reputation plays a bigger role than the quality of your pitch.

For me, the writing of the pitch is less important than finding a buyer, marketing what I've already written, and then writing the actual articles.

How did you go about getting your first gig and break into the market?

ace99 said:

How did you go about getting your first gig and break into the market?

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I got my very first (real) publishing credit my Junior year in college. I was a poster/moderator for a now defunct website covering my home county's high school sports scene. When prep football season came around, our local paper needed a few extra stringers (contractors to write selected news stories when the newspaper can't send their own pencils). They read the forum, knew I knew what I was talking about, and they decided to let me cover a few HS football games. That turned into a few more football games, then basketball, swimming, etc. If I still lived in Ohio I would probably still write for them.

I got into my current writing gig, interestingly enough, partly though CFC.

Ms.Cleo used to post articles from a hilarious football website called Every Day Should Be Saturday. I started reading it, then began commenting, and eventually contributing a few guest blogs along the sidebar (which anybody could do). EDSBS's parent company started an Ohio State blog about a year or so later, and invited me and a few other posters to apply. I got the job and have been growing the site ever since.

The pipeline from forums/blog readers---blog contributors----paid staff is not uncommon in the industry actually.

downtown said:

The pipeline from forums/blog readers---blog contributors----paid staff is not uncommon in the industry actually.

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Yeah, BR's entire business model is basically built on this concept. (minus the paid staff part)

How much time (if any) did you spend putting out unpaid articles to get your name out there?

Owen Glyndwr said:

Yeah, BR's entire business model is basically built on this concept. (minus the paid staff part)

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Haha, kinda. Bleacher Report actually has a few very good writers (the leads of their college football department are all members of the Football Writers Association of America, and I think Adam Jacobi wrote for CBS before), but the rank and file is just horrid. It's totally based on SEO-whoring rather than creating quality content, and most of their guys aren't paid at all. They're also forbidden from doing any actual reporting. They're a huge website and they're quite profitable, but nobody in the industry takes them seriously. I very rarely link to them, and I wouldn't ever write for them.

ace99 said:

How much time (if any) did you spend putting out unpaid articles to get your name out there?

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I still do it from time to time, especially as I try to get more experience doing podcasting and video work. I'll take most audio work for free just to get the practice. Generally, if the topic interests me, I'll do at least one free article if the website is substantially bigger than my own. I prob do at least a quarter of my articles 100% pro-bono.

downtown said:

Haha, kinda. Bleacher Report actually has a few very good writers (the leads of their college football department are all members of the Football Writers Association of America, and I think Adam Jacobi wrote for CBS before), but the rank and file is just horrid. It's totally based on SEO-whoring rather than creating quality content, and most of their guys aren't paid at all. They're also forbidden from doing any actual reporting. They're a huge website and they're quite profitable, but nobody in the industry takes them seriously. I very rarely link to them, and I wouldn't ever write for them.

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Yeah people like to joke about the "hordes of slave labor" they have in the form of highly opinionated college kids. My roommate used to be one of them; he was an "official Giants writer" or something like that and was expected to put out an article on the Giants every week. He really enjoyed doing it and got a pretty damned good number of views but he quit when he realized they were putting ads on his articles and he wasn't seeing a cent of it

I'd like to know what the Football Writers Association of America does, how prestigious it is to be a member of that organization, and how they go about vetting their writers/how one becomes a member.

Owen Glyndwr said:

Yeah people like to joke about the "hordes of slave labor" they have in the form of highly opinionated college kids. My roommate used to be one of them; he was an "official Giants writer" or something like that and was expected to put out an article on the Giants every week. He really enjoyed doing it and got a pretty damned good number of views but he quit when he realized they were putting ads on his articles and he wasn't seeing a cent of it

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Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. They also sensationalize everything, have very little editing, and get more of their traffic from SEO manipulation, rather than building a community around content. Very few people have left B/R to take legitimate writing jobs...I know Ed Weekly's high school sports reporter was a B/R alum, and I think SB has hired a very small number, but it's mostly a joke. Your hometown paper actually did a great article on them Owen, if you're interested: http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-10-03/...rts-journalism-internet-espn-news-technology/

Now don't get me wrong, using unpaid labor doesn't make you a joke. Our website has 9 contributors and I think only 4 or 5 are on the payroll, and I started as unpaid. The difference is with quality control. All but 2 guys on our website have either been newspaper journalists or college coaches. Everybody has had formal training. B/R, Fansided, FanHouse, YardBarker etc don't do that, which is why they are regarded as the lowest on the sports media food chain.

I'd like to know what the Football Writers Association of America does, how prestigious it is to be a member of that organization, and how they go about vetting their writers/how one becomes a member.

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It's a trade group for credentialed football writers. Members can advertise membership as a way of legitimizing themselves as writers (which is important, since many people in the marketplace are amateurs)...it's like being certified in a profession. You can be admitted after paying a small annual fee, and submitting proof that you've been credentialed for a certain number of football games.

Members also get discounts on travel and hotels, along with a ton of useful things like every football team media guide, advanced stats, and invitations to conferences.

I have not applied for membership (they keep your fee even if they reject you), because I haven't been accredited for enough football games this year.

Accreditation works differently from team to team or school to school. Some organizations, like the SEC, stubbornly refuse to recognize blogs, no matter how big or reputable they are. Others, like smaller colleges, will give access to almost anybody who asks. OSU is more tight about who gets access, and they generally only give it to people who can make every home game, which I can't for budget reasons (I don't live in Ohio). I was accredited for the Big Ten Media Days event in Chicago, and I expect to have a media pass for the Big Ten Basketball Tournament, so I may apply for the USWBA at the end of the season.

They're also forbidden from doing any actual reporting.

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What does this mean?

dutchfire said:

What does this mean?

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People who write for Bleacher Report are not allowed to report news that has not been previously broken elsewhere. They are instructed not to run original interviews or confirm with their own sources. They aren't even able to use pictures they take themselves. It is purely a commentary website.

Others in the industry disparagingly refer to this as #HOTSPROTSTAKES

Why the hell does anyone write for Bleacher Report? What exactly is the upside?

Zack said:

Why the hell does anyone write for Bleacher Report? What exactly is the upside?

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1) They do actually pay some people, and provide a pretty specific career path to get to that point. They poached one of our writers back in July, and now that they're flush with TNT money, they may try to buy other talented writers, especially now that the pressure is on re: horrible content.

2) They provide a lot of exposure to a very young journalist. Thanks to their SEO structure and their content partnerships, just about any BR article is going to get a lot of pageviews. Finding out an article you wrote got 50,000 eyeballs in two days is a thrill no matter what. For very young writers, it can give them a nice chance to cut their teeth and build a name for themselves. A high school kid or somebody who wants more writing experience outside of their college paper might give B/R a shot.

That's all I can really think of though, unless they expand into TV, which they might very soon.

downtown said:

1) They do actually pay some people, and provide a pretty specific career path to get to that point. They poached one of our writers back in July, and now that they're flush with TNT money, they may try to buy other talented writers, especially now that the pressure is on re: horrible content.

2) They provide a lot of exposure to a very young journalist. Thanks to their SEO structure and their content partnerships, just about any BR article is going to get a lot of pageviews. Finding out an article you wrote got 50,000 eyeballs in two days is a thrill no matter what. For very young writers, it can give them a nice chance to cut their teeth and build a name for themselves. A high school kid or somebody who wants more writing experience outside of their college paper might give B/R a shot.

That's all I can really think of though, unless they expand into TV, which they might very soon.

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It's also super easy to make an account and just start writing. They (or used to, anyway) give a lot of pseudo-responsibilities (and titles) to anybody who writes with any sort of regularity, giving the writer an near-immediate sense of self-importance.

Yup. Basically every big name in media is trying to enter B/R's market. Fox Sports and AOL both have their own blog networks, ESPN has a much smaller one, and there are a few independent start-up that have secured decent investments (FanSided, and there is some other one that keeps popping up in my email). Getting the quality content is hard, but a page click is a page click.

Newspapers have really struggled to adapt changing sports coverage. They're not only losing the war for eyeballs, but for talent as well.

What are your thoughts on paid petition writing? Do you find that is helpful?

ace99 said:

What are your thoughts on paid petition writing? Do you find that is helpful?

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You mean like writing an actual petition? I don't see how that's different from grant writing, which is completely legitimate. Being paid to SIGN petitions? Skeezy.