How would the Braves of the TBS years fit into this?

I’m almost split two ways here, and both of them are probably wrong because I don’t know what I’m talking about.

On the one hand, I would think that a media outlet would do the corporate “run the team like a business” thing that people like to complain about. But on the other hand, I think that if Comcast bought the Giants, it would be better for Comcast and their ratings for the Giants to actually be good – even at some cost. Where the cost / profit line would fall there, I don’t really know…

Two cents anyway. If groug wants, he can explain why I’m wrong about this. I’ll let it go this one last time.

Nintendo owns the Mariners. With that sponsorship, fans can order food and get highlights from their Nintendo DSes. If we could get something like that, I’d be cool with it.

I think there are a number of examples of media owning US professional teams including the Chicago Tribune and the Cubs, CBS owned the Yankees before they sold to Steinbrenner, Cablevision owns the Knicks and Rangers and Comcast has an ownership stake in the Flyers and Sixers.

I’m sure there are other examples but that’s what I could think of off the top of my head. I don’t get that worked up about it for two reasons. First, corporations have grown so large and diverse that it is inevitable that everything will be owned by a few select corporations. Second, the media gave up neutrality long before they were bought out by corporations.

I thought about it and my first reaction was a strong negative one; I feel that media has a duty to stay neutral…

Sadly; I feel that this epidemic consolidation will continue to expand. With extremely wealthy entertainment companies owning news outlets (I am looking at you Disney), it provides a channel to feed the public very selective information. With sports teams, what happens in your local market when the primary media outlet owns the team ? You tend to get a one sided view of the sport, and the criticism of the local team.

Prefacing, as ABC and ESPN often do, " SEE THIS AWESOME NEW DISNEY PRODUCTION", who by the way owns this network" does not make me feel any more comfortable. There will always be an alternative view, but consumers have to look hard to find it. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I want the news, not someone’s opinion of the news. When I want opinions on the news, I come to McC, Fark, Slate, Huffington Post, Daily KOS, etc. People with a love for the sport should own the team, not a corporation looking to offset operating losses with merchandise sales.

The New York Times (which also owns the Boston Globe) has had a minority ownership in the Red Sox for years now, although I think they’ve tried to unload it since the Times was hemorrhaging money. I remember reading there were some issues with the Globe’s coverage of the team given the conflict of interest.

The fact that media corporations have such massive business ties with sports teams and leagues makes the idea of a legitimate media covering sports laughable. One good example is when the Tim Donaghy scandal happened and raised major questions regarding the integrity of the NBA and its games (questions a lot of people already had) one of my friends was asking me why the media didn’t do a legitimate investigation of the scandal and allegations, as opposed to the superficial news reports that lasted for a couple of days. My response was “who is going to do it?” ESPN has a multi-million dollar broadcast contract with the NBA; Real Sports? HBO is part of a corporation that owns an NBA team (the Atlanta Hawks) and a network (TNT) that has a broadcast contract with the league, CNN and Sports Illustrated are part of the same corporation; Fox Sports? they have dozens of regional channels that have broadcast contracts with their local NBA team. It is in the interest of all of these media outlets to see the leagues that are their business partners be successful, not undermine that success with legitimate reporting.

Has anybody noticed how the “news” coverage of NASCAR has increased on all of ESPN’s platforms since they signed a deal to broadcast races? Or how their “news” coverage of the NHL has decreased since they no longer broadcast NHL games? Sports media companies basically use their “news” coverage as a means of promoting programming on their networks.

KNBR and KTVU do have (very) small ownership shares in the Giants.

If you didn’t see season 5 of the Wire, you might check it out over Christmas break. It’s a dramumentary about this very subject, in large part (although focused more on the effect of continual cost cuts on reportage).

SLCgiant basically took my post, but I think my question is: what makes it more troubling for you w/r/t sports teams, as opposed to corporations that make things like bombs, or food, or chemicals? GE owns NBC; today there was a story in the Comicle about Warren Hellman endowing an NPC bay area media outlet that’s supposed to be “working” with the NYT, and it had several quotes from a Hearst Corp talking head which was… understandable, but interesting nonetheless. Or for that matter, consider PBS, which gets somewhere around 30% of its money from corporate grants and private foundations, only about 40% from state/local gubmint.

Wherever folks are being paid to have an opinion, there will be bias as to reporting against the interests of those dollars. I’m more concerned with consolidation of the media sources among themselves than with their ultimate owners… there are hundreds of channels beamed to my satellite dish, and sadly very few owners of those many channels. Most cities once had more than one newspaper, and now those have been consolidated; as the Hellman article suggests (and the Examiner dumped in my driveway every morning by paid litterers) even the single remaining paper in many markets is beleaguered by megacorporations from across the country. The FCC has become more lenient in allowing more agglomeration of local channels.

To me, the truth lies somewhere between the Economist and the Bay Guardian… the more independent perspectives there are the more likely it is that stories will be told. Or discovered at all. I’m a lot less worried about whether Rich Aurilia’s toe is really infected than I am about, say, PG&E (sponsor of your San Francisco Giants, courtesy of your rate money) pushing a ballot initiative to require 2/3 votes for public power initiatives. And PG&E spreads its sponsorship around many media outlets.

And, BTW, I’m looking forward to the day when you’re out of school and paid to do this writing thing. At least, paid with something besides tater salad and BBQ chicken…

I don’t have a problem with it. It seems like a natural relationship to me as the media outlets can cover and promote and display the sports team. I don’t typically think that journalists get very involved in trying to cover up anything bad about the sports team, though, as we saw with Larry Krueger, they do have a reason to keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to some issues that possibly extend beyond sports.

In any event, if outlets go too far over the top in their coverage, people will see that and get their news from other sources.

if the media, etc, are covering ownership type issues, they need to disclose the relationship in their coverage, but I’ve found that tends to be the case.

NOT COMCAST!!!!! I HATE EVERYTHING PHILLY!!!

BTW I’m moving to Seattle in April, so the Mariiners will win the WS next year

If asking, “How what I think if a media corp. was trying to by the Giants?” I would have to say, “NOT WANT.”

I has a lot of distaste and disgusted with the some prominent parts of the Giants front office ( A head that big doesn’t have to be a whale. Maybe I can legally harpoon it. And why can’t we find a huge old tire dump to retire Sabean on to?) But I am extremely happy, and proud of the current Giants ownership group.