One of the rising trends of the last decade-plus has been the numbers of media members taking jobs with teams they once covered, part of media organizations’ cutting back and teams’ and leagues’ expansions into the content game. The latest to follow suit is Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com, who’s taking a job with the Red Sox:
Fenway Sports Group announces it has hired @GordonEdes as the #RedSox historian. He leaves ESPN for the job. Congrats to Gordon.
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) November 10, 2015
According to FSG, @GordonEdes will be a “strategic communications advisor” and report directly to ownership.
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) November 10, 2015
That’s an interesting pair of tweets, as a “strategic communications advisor” would seem to have rather different responsibilities than an official historian, but perhaps Edes will carry out both roles. It will be notable to see what he writes, and how. Some media members who have gone to work for teams and leagues have enough independence that their pages carry disclaimers that their content isn’t approved or endorsed by the clubs (famed basketball writer Sam Smith, who writes for the Chicago Bulls’ website now, is one such example, as are MLB.com’s beat writers), but others have fallen under tighter restrictions. (See the 2014 Chris Bianchi-Colorado Rapids saga for a case in point, or the 2012 Rich Hammond-NHL saga.) It’s also worth noting that Edes has been quite critical of the Red Sox organization at times, particularly of how they handled the firing of play-by-play man Don Orsillo.
On some levels, it’s extremely smart of leagues and teams to snap up talented journalists where they can. The journalism industry’s issues mean there are a lot of great writers and reporters out there, and teams and leagues want to boost coverage of their product and traffic to their own websites; hiring talent can be a good way to do that. This needs to be done carefully and well, though, and even when it is, it can produce awkwardness; the NFL.com/NFL Network reporters are generally very good and well-respected, and yet, NFL players still complain about coverage that comes from their own league’s media team. It sounds like Edes’ role may be more on the communications and history side and less on the side of providing opinionated commentary on the present, so that can be an easier line to walk, but it’s still going to be interesting to see what comes of it.
Hiring media veterans to produce content for teams and leagues isn’t bad across the board at all. It provides sportswriting jobs, it creates more quality content for team websites and for fans, and in some cases, it can produce excellent reporting with the right amount of editorial freedom. However, there are cases where it can go wrong. It seems unlikely that Edes’ case will be one of those, but it will be worth watching what he produces in this new role.
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