The Well-Educated Fan
The august Cleveland Frowns made an interesting point in one of his posts this week. He was taking a critical look at a Tony Grossi article in Sunday’s Plain Dealer dealing with some of the top storylines for the Browns as they head into training camp.
Frowns took exception to Grossi focusing on off-the-field issues rather than writing about the players and strategy for the upcoming season. In the comment section, he made the following point about the PD:
“… the PD frames the discussion in this town, and that it’s telling that they go out of their way to avoid discussing football in “kicking off” the discussion in 2010 to manufacture needless and entirely speculation-based intrigue about the coach’s job.”
We had never thought about it that way before. While we certainly read the PD and the Akron Beacon Journal to follow the Cleveland sports scene, we also read national sites and magazines, local newspapers covering the teams that the Browns/Cavs/Indians are playing and other blogs.
We also follow the NFL on Sirius radio. Every year, the Sirius NFL Channel visits each team’s training camp and we learn more in the 3 hours they are at Browns camp than we would in a month of listening to WTAM or WKNR.
You can see a list of some of the sites we follow along the right-hand rail of this blog, (go ahead and look, it’s right over there). Any well-organized blog will have a similar list and those are a great source for finding new sites and information.
We assumed that the majority of fans did that as well, since the growth of the Internet and satellite radio, to name a few, make so much more information available if you want it. We no longer have to rely on a local newspaper or two and a blowhard radio “personality” for our sports news; the info is right at our fingertips.
But the more we thought about it, the more we realized that’s most likely not the case. A majority of the fans probably don’t have the time or the desire to seek out more news and information and use that to not only learn more about the local team, but about the leagues they compete in. And that’s too bad.
It’s much better if we, as a fanbase, absorb as much knowledge as possible to understand not only what is happening on the field, but what is happening off it. Then we can use the local media coverage to supplement our knowledge, not drive it, so we can form our own opinions.
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As we pointed out a few weeks ago, the Browns are having trouble selling tickets this year.
Perhaps if the in-stadium experience were more like this, they would be moving ducats a little bit faster.
It certainly couldn’t hurt.
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Red Right 88 