Esquire is one of the three magazines we subscribe to, and in the most recent issue (Hilary Swank’s on the cover, looking hot for the first time since 90210), there was an interesting tidbit in the Editor’s Letter about blogging. Though we couldn’t find a link to it online, we pulled a bit of here, and figured it might make for a decent discussion among sports bloggers and those who read sports blogs:

But the far more insidious force is the all-powerful democratizing force of the internet. It’s not just the You Tube phenomenon, in which you are allowed to program an entertainment outlet for the google boys so that they may sell advertising against it and inflate their stock price and get ever richer.

We’ve lowered the bar for what kind of unreachable dream we’re settling for. It used to be riches. Now we settle for the honor of having our efforts recognized.

The new opiate of the masses is the illusion of participation in the culture, even as the underpinnings of a good life – money, mostly – are stripped away and handed to the filthy rich. It’s a hell of a dynamic. As the minstrel once said, the rich keep getting richer and the rest of us just keep getting old.

If you operate a tiny independent blog (like we do), chances are you’re not making squat. This is not going to be some whiny diatribe about how we work hard for nothing; blogging is the most fun we’ve had writing in our extremely undistinguished career. Plus, there are roughly 8,002 jobs far more challenging and tiring and worthy of a salary than blogging (off the cuff, educating America’s youth).

Since 2007 is the year of the Sports Blog! – more on this tomorrow – what are we doing here, guys? What’s the point of spending hours every day (in our case, probably 5-6) blogging about sports when there is no financial gain? Perhaps most importantly, who the hell is getting richer off of us? Are we the new dopes who populate Reality TV?

Sure, when USA Today or the New York Times ‘recognizes our efforts’ with a mention, we’re thrilled. But like a fleeting hookup with a tease who won’t give you her number, the next day, life is back to normal. At what point do you throw in the towel and move on to your next project?

We’re in a bit of a ramble, so we’ll stop now. These two links aren’t sports-related (we haven’t seen the sports version of this why blog? story written yet), but may shed some light.

Why Blog? (The Journal)
So What’s the Point of Bloggin? (BBC)