"In the past, critical sports coverage was mostly directed at individual owners and coaches, for boneheaded decisions, and individual athletes, for their alleged greed come contract time. The critical change is that reporters and commentators are now asking tough questions of the leagues and executives who hold the real power. In the emerging Dickensian narrative, players are merely cogs in an industrial machine, used up and spit out. Pieces like the Boogaard series are laying bare the human costs of that arrangement."

"Think of data as a silo that exists within the cloud. That data can be tapped at anytime, from anywhere, using tablets with applications specifically designed to access the data and give it context. That has precisely what is happening in baseball."

"You'd be amazed by the number of people who stop me, bring me papers to autograph. I give a speech and ask for questions afterwards, this is 20 years on, and somebody always asks about The National. People do remember it fondly."

"When word of Simmons' project first came out, my first impulse was that it was going to be almost like an 'Awl for sports.' The details released today -- high-quality (if lesser-known) writers, thoughtful pieces, not tethered to the news cycle -- suggest that it is what The Awl could be -- if one of the world's largest media companies opened up its resources ..."

"... the Kentucky Derby, which symbolically reflects the country's pastoral heritage, may be closer to the Super Bowl than any other single sporting event. But the Breeders' Cup, which is often described as the Super Bowl of horse racing, isn't much like the Super Bowl at all. Not really. Yes, the Breeders' Cup has its parties and celebrities. But in the end, the Breeders' Cup is about sports, about racing and competition and championships. Quite simply, the Breeders' Cup represents a purity of competition that the Super Bowl never has achieved and never will."

"The importance of mobile and video to MLBAM’s business grew substantially last year. In 2008, mobile comprised 8 percent of MLBAM’s traffic; in 2010, it represented 37 percent of all of MLBAM’s vistors. On the video front, in 2010, MLBAM, the digital business arm of Major League Baseball, said its viewers racked up 9.5 billion minutes of streamed ballgames across all devices, including wired."

"Carillo was the opposite of that culture, and more akin to those on the print side who often play the heavy for fans of the sport. "You always want people who played the game," Williamson countered. 'You always want people who have relationships with people in the game. At the same point, you don't want to fool anybody. You want to tell people, "Yeah, there are some relationships here but that does not pollute someone's objectivity, their ability to analyze or give you strategy or their take on a potential news story."' Tennis stars can be fickle when it comes to press access and there's naturally a delicate dance covering them."

"Go ahead, racing people -- keep arguing. The arguing, in fact, is about the most solid substance we have when it comes to Horse of the Year. There is only one rule governing what constitutes a potential Horse of the Year -- that the horse has started at least once in North America -- and guidelines have never been more specific than that. Form an opinion and send in your ballot. That is all that is asked of the 250 voters who were polled to determine the 2010 Eclipse Award winners, including Horse of the Year."

"The fantasy site fanball.com, which is operated by Liberty Media, estimates that at least 29 million Americans play fantasy football. An entire media industry devoted to the subject has exploded, seeking to satisfy the "owners'" insatiable demands for the latest stats on the approximately 1,700 players in the NFL. That the Internet is uniquely suited to fill that type of number-crunching and record-keeping role has only accelerated the expansion of fantasy football." (Via @o_crunk)

"The athlete in decline who decides to leave the game on his own timetable does no harm to anybody. What fan doesn't enjoy seeing his favorite star one more time? Only sportswriters cherish storybook career-finishes. They want Ted Williams to hit a home run in his last at-bat, because that's a prettier story to write than chronicling a superstar who goes out stumbling -- like Willie Mays. If sportswriters had their way, every star would die of Lou Gehrig disease during his last dance on the field, the court, or the rink."

"This is how baseball’s archives are created now -- not by merely storing videotapes on a shelf, as it has been done for decades, but by a team of 'loggers' whose job is to watch every game as it happens (2,430 during the regular season, and up to 41 in the postseason) and add computerized notes on every play, no matter how ordinary."

"I went out to Hollywood Park on Saturday afternoon to see what soccer in this country could be."

"... thanks to the convergence of several factors, the technological tools to perform that analysis and take it in myriad new directions are becoming increasingly powerful. And fueled in part by newer innovations such as real-time motion tracking, advanced statistical algorithms, and high-definition and highly searchable online video, the number of firms entering or expanding their business presence in player analysis is quickly accelerating.... Arguably the most dramatic advance within player analysis has not been within the number crunching itself, but the ability to take the research anywhere and access it through a simple touchscreen. Apple’s iPad tablet device, which sold more than 3 million units in just 90 days following its April debut, is now a must-have business tool for dozens of GMs across the major sports leagues."

"OK, they weren't too inspirational, but they looked great on TV."

"Barich’s piece anticipates the sports stories of David Foster Wallace, with their deft blend of personal narrative and reportage (insofar as it’s possible to anticipate such singular things), and is the most memorable of several strong pieces of personal writing in the anthology." Reviews The Only Game in Town (New Yorker), Rules of the Game (Harper's).

"SocialSphere, Inc., a data-based strategist employed by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), has its own set of Potemkin numbers. The company contends that 50 million of the proletariat connects with the Sport of Kings in one way or another and that seven million people went to the racetracks and bet during the last 30 days." [Re: marketing, comparison to.]

"There is so much competing for a kid’s attention that it’s hard to give them a stack of cardboard and expect them to spend a day on that stuff."

"Regarding the future, I think the best way to say it is that we just want to be everywhere that the sports fan is. For us, it's less about traffic generation than it is about creating brands. We're not looking to exploit search engines, and we're instead investing in better capabilities and metrics in reporting for our advertisers."

"With minimal additional investment and no extra hires, fan-based SB Nation is launching 20 new regional sports sites during the next few weeks." (New York: http://newyork.sbnation.com/)

"There are a million questions to choose from, but right now the most cutting-edge research is in the mysterious, ethereal, and, most maddeningly, subjective world of defense. And that quest to objectify the subjective has opened a new front in the battle between the Yankees and their eternal enemies, the Red Sox."

"When MLBAM started, it wasn't yet feasible to offer streaming video online, so MLBAM's first commercial product was online audio feeds. Its primary target was passionate baseball fans that had moved but still wanted to be able to follow their hometown team. To minimize conflicts with the clubs, it only let people listen to out-of-town games." From there, it grew.

On ESPN's expansion into local markets: "... here's maybe the most important reason not to underestimate ESPN's city sites: Consumers just can't get enough of the brand. ESPN's ironic sensibility has supplanted the ire of the jaded ink-stained wretch." Newest local, ESPN NY, launched April 2. Like other city sites, focus is on major teams, hign school sports. What's missing? Racing, of course, despite New York being one of the largest markets in the game (this is one niche the local papers can continue to dominate).

"The goal is simple: to replicate the company's smashing success in the financial world, where the $1,500-a-month Bloomberg terminals are in many ways the lifeblood of the industry, into the sports world. Bloomberg is starting with baseball. The company has just launched its fantasy product, which costs $31.95 for the year and is available on MLB.com." Watching with interest ...

More details from the December 2009 deal announcement: "For the MLBAM-Bloomberg product being sold to MLB teams, Bloomberg will take MLBAM’s real-time statistical feed from every game, as well as location-based data already being developed in partnership with Sportvision, and apply an almost limitless amount of analytical tools." Neat! Visuals: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/bloomberg-sports-professional-tool/ Via: http://twitter.com/o_crunk/status/8470361155

"What MLB showed off today could be the best version of Gameday and MLB.tv that BAM has developed so far -- even better than the desktop experience."

"The round was led by Betfair, which runs a legal online gambling business for betting on horse races." (Watercolor develops sports-related social games and already offers more than 600 apps, mostly for American sports teams.) "The deal also shows that Betfair, which has 1,600 employees, is still focused on a U.S. expansion." (And that it will be aggressive in pursuing that expansion through social media and fantasy games. Contrast: Youbet's Whodoyoulike?)

"Traditional sports media publishers: be afraid, be very afraid. In the latest example of English football clubs enhancing their own position as digital media providers, Arsenal has this week launched an iPhone app, priced £2.99 and developed by 2ergo. It has exclusive pictures, video, scores and news designed to keep Gunners fans happy. But what should have mainstream digital publishers worried is the sheer size of Arsenal's new media operations."

"Of that, 36,000, or roughly 10% were watching on their iPhone or iPod Touch." Very interesting.

The real issue: "It’s a question of media control: top UK football clubs are tightly controlled media machines -- some are public companies -- feeding selected news and information to trusted journalists. And increasingly they want to broadcast news themselves whether online, on TV or through magazines."

"A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun anew by hundreds of innovative statistics that will rate players more accurately, almost certainly affect their compensation and perhaps alter how the game itself is played."

"We will always like our team more than your team, and our sport more than your sport. That is how it should be. Sports is not a movement. It’s just entertainment."

NASCAR announces the creation of a "citizen journalist media corps," promises full press credentials, access to those selected. But how much independence?

Mixed reviews, ethical concerns (and be sure to check out the SI story highlights in the top right). "Think about that for a second. A spitfire NFL coach had to lecture his players, among the most macho, muscular, and ferocious athletes on the planet, about something called 'Twitter.' Hear that thumping sound below you? That's Lombardi knocking his head against the grave."

"Apparently Kerouac, also a little nuts about horse races, created a system of fantasy horse racing using marbles. He actually describes a version of this game in Doctor Sax ..."

And with fantasy horse racing: "The ball bearing traveled faster than the marbles, some of which were intentionally nicked to indicate equine fragility and mortality. So the ball bearing became the nearly invincible horse Repulsion, 'King of the Turf,' whose legendary speed and stamina are celebrated in Kerouac’s racing sheets."

Baseball, football, basketball ...

Three weeks into the 2009 baseball season, subscription sales are up 45%, iPhone At Bat app sales total $1.3 million gross. [Subtract 30% Apple share, that's $910,000 net for a mobile app that delivers mostly repurposed content and data. Nice revenue stream if you can build it.]

"John Madden announced his retirement from NFL broadcasting this morning in a simple fashion his old colleague Pat Summerall would appreciate: 'It’s time. I’m 73 years old.' And he’s right: It’s definitely time. That’s not meant as an insult."

Turf writers not alone in decline: "Baseball's independent press corps ... is fading. As newspapers cut budgets and payrolls, the press boxes at major league ballparks are becoming increasingly lonely places, signaling a future when some games may be chronicled only by wire services, house organs and web writers watching the games on television."

"MLB is about to stream a season of more than 2,000 live games in hi-definition with more features than any cable box."

Schedule of live sports events showing on the site.

MLB expands online offerings, subscription packages. New video players comes in HD and works much like DVR systems.

And delivers more than 5.6 million hours of streaming video and audio. Numbers up more than 64%, but not without work. "Despite all the marketing, we have to get people’s behaviors to change."

"ESPN is doggedly pursuing the same strategy online that made it a success in the TV world: licensing pipes, not people. And it just might work."

"Our fans are never wrong," says MLB.com CEO Bob Bowman. "We can never suggest that a fan shouldn't do everything he or she is doing to watch a baseball game… the best way to combat these gray activities is to have a better product: higher quality, more streams, high definition, things that [Slingbox] can't do."

Complete list, with links to full texts for many, courtesy of the Millions. William Nack on Secretariat is among the picks, as is the incomparable piece by John Updike on Ted Williams.

NHL expands its advanced media offerings with live streaming video that's "TV quality," access to full archived video, and a real-time data feed. Lots of ideas in there for racing to emulate!

"As the world scrambles to master online video, crusty old baseball already has it figured out."

Straight up, old media baseball writing: "This is a site for baseball columns, not for baseball blogs."

"While old and new media are mending many fences, they’re still squaring off in jockland."

Pat Jordan on the trouble with sports journalism.

The sort of thing I'd like to publish on R360

“It’s a great story,” Pound said. “Wonderful. But if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

SARMs, like steroids, but better

"... new research from Sweden suggests that anyone who takes steroids, even once, may effectively be a cheater for life."

An amazing trove of sports articles and photographs, including some fantastic racing stuff

An experiment in citizen sports journalism (very little racing)