Top 10 threats to sports blogging

Douglas Charles Managing Editor

by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool.com

the+blogfrican+threat+level+is+now+yellow Top 10 threats to sports bloggingWhat could end life as we know it? Well, the following. From the top…

10) Aggregation. Between the World Wide Lemur sucking up people into various networks, YardBarker, Ballhype and Bleacher Report reposting excerpts, and Gawker Media hiring people to turn into snarkbots… is there any reason and/or likelihood for the general public to bookmark individual sites? (I say no, but that’s probably because my site is Remarkably Unpopular.)

9) Image royalties and/or the IRS. Let’s just say that not every Blogfrican is up to date on their accounting. And leave it at that, really. (Whistles, walks away slowly…)

8) The Economy / Plummeting CPMs. Last week, I was fortunate enough to get a big traffic burst from a link, which helped to create the largest traffic date in my remarkably unpopular blog’s history. For this wasabi-like rush of eyeballs, I received… well, let’s just say that it’s not exactly going to appear on my taxes. It’s a good thing I’m in this for the self-hate, rather than the money, because it’s really not a good time to sell online advertising, kids.

7) Imitation. One of the best time-honored ways to get eyeballs to your site was to find a niche audience (say, college baseball or MMA), throw a ton of content at it, and bask in the glow of your good idea. The only problem is that with nothing really stopping another site or 300 from duplicating your efforts, it’s bound to wind up eroding your traffic, and hoarding in on your ad contracts. Yay!

6) Cockblocking. The vast majority of people who visit content Web sites are, surprise surprise, doing it during working hours. In an increasingly difficult environment for employees, and with more and more employers going for tracking software and domain blocks, there’s a real chance that the audience is going to be compromised.

5) Apathy. Most writers want comments (not me, in that I generally hate them, and you — you don’t think that Remarkable Unpopularity comes easy, do you?). But if you write enough pieces without them, or get nothing but troll hate, you may want to find some other void to howl into.

4) Women and children. Most Blogfricans are not yet saddled with the burdens of male adulthood, and just on the off chance that you haven’t heard this before… they can change your priorities. Something fierce, really.

3) Networking. Along with the aggregation, there’s also the simple fact that the medium has become mature enough for people to meet each other… and when they do, circle jerkery and logrolling ensues. (And yes, that counts as a back-handed shout out to all the BWB Homies! Please write about your experience some more!)

2) Technology. Between Twitter, Facebook, live blogging, podcasting, video work and more, keeping the bloghole filled just keeps getting more involved… and there’s really no reason to think that if you are good at one thing, you’ll be good at something entirely different. (I can prove this in daily and unfortunate detail when you follow @dmtshooter on Twitter.)

1) Fatigue. Like drug dealing, sports bloggery isn’t a game that lends itself to vacations, consumer loyalty or a murder-free path to the top. (Scrap sleeps with one eye open.) If the guys from Fire Joe Morgan could wear out and hang it up, so could you.

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