When the NHL was in lockout, I had a debate with a well-respected newspaper editor. The debate focused on whether it was better to own a professional sports team or a newspaper in the town that you lived in. At the time, this editor basically posited to me that the NHL was “dead as a doornail” and that there was no real consumer interest in hockey. I posited that we were getting our game restructured and that hockey was a global game. Its interest level was growing with young people and that we would lead in digital delivery of our content and services. I bet him that in less than five years that all of our growth arrows would be green and all of his growth arrows would be in the red.
I also noted that sports teams, newspapers and universities were the enduring brands in each city. (Think about it.) They were all trophy properties and since you couldn’t buy a university and newspapers were shrinking badly and were already public companies, that sports team would become the most “aspirational” of all things to own and operate in a major city.
So here is the question: Would you rather own the Washington Redskins or Washington Nationals or Washington Capitals or Washington Wizards vs. the Washington Post? Or in the case of Sam Zell, would you rather own the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls or Chicago Blackhawks compared to the Chicago Tribune. Note that the Tribune Company is selling the Cubs right now basically to help pay down debt incurred to the business and take it private which I believe is a mistake because sports teams are appreciating while newspapers are shrinking.
So what do you think? Better to own a sports team or a newspaper in a top 10 market?
why not be like Dan Snyder and own both?
What a tough question, as a sports lover I automaticallly go sports team, but the journalism major in me makes me debate more.
After weighing the pros and cons, I would have to go sports team at this point. I think that newspapers are important, espcicially ones like the Washington Post, with a great history and tradition, but what is more important than newspapers is for the companies running them to trancend print and to adapt to changing technlogy.
I would have to go with a sports team, and of course the Caps would be my first choice. I feel like with sports teams you can put so much more into to, and that there is a much higher roof with what you can do, where with newpapers, there is more limitation.
Professional sports team with the caveat that it’s not every last dime going into purchasing them. A sports team provides people with an entertainment experience, whether it’s the fans or the owners, and it can be a wild ride as last season showed.
A newspaper is reporting information and shaping opinion (or so they’d like to think). They are the ones recapping what the sports teams did the night before, so what it comes down to is, do you want to be a news maker or a news reporter?
And as a side note, I’ve got internet access, both at work and at home. When I get into work, one of the first things I do is read through the various compilations that are put together that may be of interest to me (Agency specific news summary, agency specific clipping service (full articles, no pictures), government clipping service (EB)). I have a home page set up on the Internet which delivers a couple of comic strips to me, and I get another one in the mail every day. I’ll even read the broader news/sports/technology clippings that my home page gathers for me. And yet, at lunch, I’ll still pick up a paper about half the time, because it’s nice to get away from my desk and the office, sit outside and read the paper while I have my sandwich. Maybe the paper isn’t dead, but it’s not the essential content delivery system any more.
This is a really dumb argument. It is simple business: Owning a sports franchise is buying into a legal monopoly. Professional sports franchises have anti trust exemptions protected by the Federal Government. There is no real competition and it would cost a great deal to even try and compete. Newspapers are pretty much as dead as snail mail. The internet allows pretty much anyone to blog or report the news without any major capital investment. Most sports teams have revenue sharing and league handouts for stadium improvements, debt consolidation, etc. Could you imagine the Tribune Company sharing some of it’s profits with the Washington Post for the good of the newspaper industry. It would never happen, but all professional sports teams do it. The business world doesn’t have forced parity and legal monopolies, so sports will always win out.
I would own a sports team over a newspaper in a heartbeat.
1) Nobody wears a Washington Post T-Shirt, Hat, Foam Finger
2) Who would you rather have to dinner, Alex Ovechkin or Peter Whoriskey? (Sorry Mr. Whoriskey, just the first name I found..;)
3) Cities actually provide public financing to provide a location for sports teams. How cool is that? When did you hear about a city building a “newspaper arena”?
4) Today, the Internet enhances sports. It could be a death blow to newspapers.
Which team would I want? Washington Capitals. All sorts of room for improvement in the business. This isn’t meant to imply anything negative, just that it would be harder to improve the position of the NFL and the Redskins right now.
Newspapers could be fixed. Unfortunately, they seem inclined to take an express elevator to irrelevance. They all seem to print the same non-news tabloid stories with a lack of real reporting. You could cut the Washington Post down to about 20 pages. Local news + Columnists + Comics + Sports stories (skip the stats). Are there truly that many subscribers that don’t have Internet access or a TV today?
I agree with you that it is much better to own a franchise in a major market. That said, one of the problems with sports franchises is that much harder to manage and much easier to mismanage.
Excellent question. Newspapers are consolidating and becoming more national (if in name retaining a local brand), and incorporating common content (you particularly see this with radio), losing some of that regional connection.
And of course their influence is being eroded by new media, which is breaking down the old “newspaper guild.” These new outlets are filling the void of local/regional content that people continue to crave and deserve.
Sports teams remain inherently local. The team’s brand is dependent upon it being unique, tied to a particular region and social culture. And decades have shown that the interest in “major” sports has been fairly resistent to competitors. And unlike newspapers, their influence has grown quite a bit as technology has broadened their reach. So a team might be the better way to go.
Further, in America, a whole lot of people have significant emotional attachment to their favorite (usually local) sports team, cutting across generations and cultural groups. Their local newspaper? Not so much.
I would have with sports team, even that I can not own the Caps.
much better to own a sports team than a newspaper.
probably better to own a media company.
i.e. the question is, companies like the washington post have a huge amount of assets, the question is, how well can they monetize them.
there’s a lot of money to be made in media, and huge growth possibilities, one just has to plan ahead.
On the flip side, owning a sports team is essentially owning a piece of a monopoly (i.e. only limited amount of teams and very difficult to enter market). So if one can capitilize on that, one can perhaps create a huge amount of value (See what Snyder has done with the redskins). Only issue is that you can end up pissing off a lot of fans.