Brandon Smith and the Content Wars
If you haven’t seen it by now, you’ve either been living under a rock or are probably still struggling through some second rate NBN rollout, but to catch you up, Melbourne Storm hooker Brandon Smith has signed with the Sydney Roosters for 2023 and beyond.
Cool, all caught up? Thanks for reading.
Why is this a big issue?
Well, I could go on about the pitfalls of the current ludicrous NRL contract system ad nauseum, but friend of Beyond The Fence and Wide World of Sports journalist Matt Bungard outlined the issues of the current system in this piece, so read that instead.
No, what I’m here to talk about is the brainless nature of common Australian sports media coverage and the wolfwhistles of the everyday idiot at the pub.
Now usually I’d ignore such ramblings from career journalists who couldn’t tell a lead runner from a lead pencil, especially when their sole goal is to generate clicks and engagement. After all, if you don’t like how the sausage is made, stop eating the sausage, right?
But this bothered me.
No it isn’t the interview he gave, it’s how the dinosaurs behind the keyboards have focused on it. Way to focus on the important stuff fellas.
Brandon Smith swore in an interview. Oh the profanity, won’t someone think of the children?
(On the off chance this tweet is later deleted by master data aggregators, I’ve just posted the screenshot instead.)
With the rise in popularity of American sports in Australia, the local market has become attuned to hot takes, drama analysis and talking heads. Think your Skip Bayless, Stephen A Smith, Colin Cowherd types. All well and good, they generate interest. Whether or not you agree with their methods is another story, but I digress.
But the great part about American sports isn’t the screaming matches between Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless, it’s the accessibility, and transparency, of its biggest stars.
Sure, for every Colin Cowherd there’s fifteen talented analysts and writers hidden away providing top level coverage on every aspect of a sports team imaginable, but how do you think that analysis stays so sharp? That coverage so up to date?
Inherently, and this might sound like an outlandish statement to make, but guess what? The American market, and American sports media, for all its faults, actually respects their athletes. It’s almost as if the American media realises the athletes are the lifeblood of their industry. Ridicule and alienation of the main attraction would be a pretty silly tactic for people who enjoy employment.
So Bulldog, you can’t write this drivel about “COUNT THE SWEAR WORDS, COUNT EM!” and then turn around and bemoan the fact that players won’t give you an interview. Why would they, when you’ve spent the majority of your career hunting for the next gotcha, denying agendas and arguing with fans online when they call out your tosh.
People, for example, want the NRL players’ salaries to be made public. I personally think it’d be a great step forward for how we understand our game if we can see the machinations of the salary cap and how the pieces of the puzzle fit.
We’re a long way from this becoming the norm in Australian sports coverage
Again, to compare to the US market, countless days are spent on Spotrac poring over salaries, exceptions, player options and unguaranteed money, because everything is public. There’s no place to hide. When something is reported, it’s fact, and no one shies away from that.
But why the hell would any current Australian athlete agree to that system of public salary information when the best content our sports media industry can muster is “10 Moneyball signings the Dolphins can make” or “SHOOSH: player spotted having coffee with friend at rival club, is there drama brewing?”
When was the last time you watched Moneyball, just quietly? I think any American media executive that pitched a Moneyball style article would not only be laughed out of the room, but sent to cover Missouri peewee football or state Euchre championships in Indiana.
It’s true there is some terrific analysis in the Australian sports media landscape, but the issue is that while in America there’s ten quality writers in the public eye for every shock jock, it’s just not the same here, and this isn’t entirely down to market size either.
Sure, the American market is aeons bigger than anything our market will ever become, but the Australian sports media landscape at the top is one of the biggest ‘boys clubs’ in the nation, second only to our national cricket team. Quality writers get shunted for clickbait rumours or player ratings on a constant basis, and in Australia, for every Skip or Cowherd, there’s…another Skip or Cowherd, with no substance in between.
The sad fact is Australians, for the most part, don’t care about longform storytelling. It isn’t their fault, it’s habit from a lifetime of being force-fed the same tired tropes from a core industry hurtling towards extinction.
You can’t yearn for American style sports coverage if you’re going to shoot it in the eyes every time it appears in plain sight organically.
Cooper Cronk was ridiculed for sounding too smart and told to dumb it down for audiences when his analysis got too in depth on Fox League. Brandon Smith is scolded for giving a candid interview, and while I’m far from a Brandon Smith fan, transparency is refreshing, so why are we quick to neuter it?
Is it because the established status quo feels threatened? Are they mad they couldn’t break the news first?
