After the Boston Celtics beat the Indiana Pacers to complete a four-game sweep in the Eastern Conference Finals on Monday night, The Athletic’s Jay King took to social media to share a quote from Jaylen Brown’s postgame press conference.
Jaylen Brown: “I know people think that Indiana wasn’t a good team or whatever the case may be, but I thought they were as tough as anybody we played all season. They were physical, they were fast, they put a lot of pressure on us. So shout out to them and respect to them.”
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) May 28, 2024
King’s post received more than 140 retweets, 1,000 likes and 64,000 views — solid engagement for a mildly interesting press conference quote. But it paled in comparison to the engagement that Legion Hoops received — more than 200 retweets, 4,000 likes and one million views — for aggregating the very same quote with credit to King.
Jaylen Brown:
“I know people think that Indiana wasn’t a good team or whatever the case may be, but I thought they were as tough as anybody we played all season… So shout out to them and respect to them.”
(via @ByJayKing) pic.twitter.com/16VFkOa7u7
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) May 28, 2024
Such is life in sports media in 2024, where every quote, report, trade rumor and highlight is seemingly considered fair game for aggregator accounts. Never mind that such accounts can often spread misinformation that becomes considered to be fact in today’s short attention news cycle. At this point, it’s become widely accepted that dealing with aggregator accounts come with the territory of the industry.
But after seeing Legion Hoops siphon his post for its own engagement, King — who covered the Celtics vs. Pacers series in-person — had seen enough.
“It’s pathetic that twitter accounts have such big followings just for stealing content from people who are actually at the games doing the work,” King wrote, quote-tweeting Legion Hoops’ post.
It’s pathetic that twitter accounts have such big followings just for stealing content from people who are actually at the games doing the work. https://t.co/zenJLLWOZq
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) May 28, 2024
King’s gripe is an understandable one and one that’s shared by the majority of beat writers, columnists, reporters and anyone else who covers actual games for a living. It genuinely must suck to post a quote — or any piece of information worth sharing — only to see your own post overshadowed by another account that wouldn’t have been privy to such content if not for your work.
Conversely, the market has spoken and as King alluded to, these accounts wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t an audience for them. For better or worse — and it’s largely been worse — people don’t care who they’re getting their information from and are even willing to sacrifice some accuracy in the name of convenience.
All things considered, Legion Hoops posting a quote that was available to be heard in a public press conference is hardly one of the most egregious examples of content aggregation we’ve seen even recently. Still, that doesn’t make it any less annoying for reporters like King, who do the leg work to obtain such content, only to see it receive more engagement when posted somewhere else.
