The SI Ship Be Sinkin’: Mike Silver Leaves for Yahoo Sports
Media Gossip/Musings July 25th. 2007, 3:36pm
How much of a shocker is this? While Peter King is the name at SI everybody knows, Mike Silver long ago surpassed Dr. Z in terms of relevance, becoming the magazine’s No. 2 NFL writer by cozying up to Peyton Manning and writing Super Bowl cover stories.
Apparently, Silver has wanted out for quite some time – sources tell us that Silver was a finalist for the ESPN the Magazine/.com job that recently went to another SI scribe, Jeff Chadiha. While we haven’t seen Chadiha’s byline in the Magazine or on the .com much (granted, we haven’t been looking), we have seen him butting heads with Skip Clueless on 1st and 10 when we happen to tune into that show.
The real news here is the magnificent fall from grace for Sports Illustrated. The amount of talent the magazine has lost in the year and change alone could revamp an entire sports newspaper department: columnist Steve Rushin, Franz Lidz, Jeff MacGregor, Chadiha, and now Silver. Apparently the magazine’s inability (or lack of interest) in pushing a competitive web product has led many at the magazine to become disenfranchised, fearing that online destinations like Fox, Yahoo and Sportsline eventually will become more relevant (if they haven’t already).
Does this make anyone else wonder why SI.com would purchase something called Fan Nation for reportedly $23 million? The mistake here was that readers are attracted to a brand and writers they can related to … which is why SI should have been looking at buying blogs, not message boards.
28 Responses to “The SI Ship Be Sinkin’: Mike Silver Leaves for Yahoo Sports”
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July 25th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
It is sad how the granddaddy of them all keeps falling. I think they are making FanNation.com into a space for blogs for their writers, but it has been too slow of a turnaround. Still, the .com of the WWL doesn’t have a ton of writers that I like to read.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
the fact that Jemele Hill basically does Mike Silver’s gimmick (riding with black athletes trying to get street cred) doesn’t make this too much of a loss.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I feel that SI has neglected to use its website to promote its product and writers for a long time but I see it changing. They add Extra Mustard which is smart because it will generate traffic for those of us looking for blogs and different stories to read. By getting linked, (and hopefully having a good server to be able to handle said link) the bloggers get more exposer and SI.com looks like bloggers mainstream media destination (not true but it makes them look better than ESPN). They have added web only writers, Jon Heyman for baseball has been a must read for baseball nuts and being from NY and reading Newsday that guy has a good Rep for getting the inside info and stories…he works hard and is generally respected. A couple more guys like this you have something. Peter King (love him or hate him) is a must read Monday mornings during the season. They have the structure there, now it is implementing it. To be losing the talent doesn’t help because they should be utilizing these guys on the internet all the time. It is rare to get a Tom Verducci story on the web and he is another good reporter. If they want to be a force they should be doing their best to keep these guys and go forward as the responsible good in depth sports website (and free) and go against ESPN.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
as long as they still have jenn sterger spinning her wonderful yarns they are still tops in my book.
seriously, how many actual writers would love to write for SI and they give a whole column to some broad because she has big tits.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I get both SI and ESPN the Mag (since I’m an Insider) and only read SI while the mag is great to use as a pizza coaster
Overall I think I like SI.com more than ESPN.com but that’s mostly due to likeing the writers more over there (if Stewart Mandel ever left I don’t know what I’d do)
July 25th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I disagree about looking to buy blogs instead of message boards to a certain extent. I think they were trying to emulate FoxSport’s purchase of scout.com, which is considered a major success…such to the point that Yahoo just scooped up Rivals.com for 100Million. It is a BIG mistake to think that purchasing a message board site is a bad move…they just purchased the wrong one.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I think it is a stretch to call Steve Rushin talented. His columns were predictable and not very humorous. SI has fallen and I no longer subscribe. I am becoming a fan of Extra Mustard. I canceled my ESPN Insider account months ago and the magazine still will not stop delivering. Its on autopilot like the originality of most of its writers.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Silver is such a Cal homer! Go Bruins!
July 25th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
“While Peter King is the name at SI everybody knows, Mike Silver long ago surpassed Dr. Z in terms of relevance, becoming the magazine’s No. 2 NFL writer by cozying up to Peyton Manning and writing Super Bowl cover stories.”
I disagree. Don Banks brings the best actual reporting on the NFL over at SI… I give King his due for scoops – that man has plenty of sources willing to talk to him. But the day-in, day-out aolid stuff comes from Banks, not Silver.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I apologize in advance, but I can’t help myself. When did the SI writers lose their right to vote?
I will continue to read SI.com for King and Mandel. Luke Winn and Seth Davis aren’t too bad either. At least you feel like you get the news without the side of crap that ESPN now serves.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
a few thoughts:
* i still think si.com is far superior to bspn.com. give me peter king, don banks and dr. z over mort and clayton any day (although i love clayton… too much of his copy is insider).
* silver was good but predictable. a loss but not a loss that will bring the site down. it still hurts though.
* si.com lost a big fish a couple of years ago when ivan maisel left. although i like mandel a great deal, i give the edge to maisel. the loss of maisel was a bigger hit than silver.
* say what you will about jenn sterger, but her columns and videos likely get thousands more hits than any of the absolute tripe that arash markazi puts out. man, what a friggin waste that guy is. btw, markazi CANNOT compete with thebiglead.com!
* yeah, i don’t get the fannation thing. i guess that was si’s attempt to steal from aol fanhouse?
* extra mustard blows bspn’s page 2 away.
* bspn.com has yet to come up with an alternative to the swimsuit models’ pics/videos. major advantage si.com. i’ve got two words for ya bspn.com: petra nemcova.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Sportsline will eventually be revelant? Do they have anything worth reading now? That website has been around for years and still has nothing worth reading (that’s including Freeman and Doyel). Sportsline needs to clean house, get a new editor, and then hire some quality writers before I ever go there again.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I prefer cnnsi.com to espn.com. A lot of it is merely ease of navigation on the site. Espn.com is like a circus. I get ticks and seizures just trying to figure out what is going on. I read Wyatt Thompson and Simmons on Espn and that’s about it. Cnnsi.com has Z., Mandel, Winn (college hoops not soccer), and for a good chuckle each morning, Peter King. They may have other writers, but with the exception of the drivel the Slut writes, nothing angers me over there. ESPN has so much crap. TMQ makes me want to kill anyone associated with think tinks or hifalutin east coast society.
That said, Silver leaving damages the print magazine far more than the online site. Apparently, no one visits the site anyways.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
extra mustard is bad, page 2 is bad, sterger is bad, markazi is bad. just give me sports. i don’t give a flying fuck about pop culture.
and if i want to see T & A, there are about 10 million different websites I can go to. this is the INTERNET. scantily clad women are not that much of a novelty.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Best NFL writers (in order):
1. Don Banks (SI.com)
2. Charles Robinson (Yahoo Sports)
3. Jason Cole (Yahoo Sports)
4. Adam Schein (Foxsports.com)
5. Len Pasquerelli (ESPN.com)
July 25th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Mike Silver has ZERO credibility. This is a “writer” who for the last two years thinks that Dan Snyder is one of the five best owners in the NFL and that the Rooney’s belong in the middle of the pack.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Brian,
Your inclusion of Pasquerelli confuses me. Is your list a joke or are you serious?
July 25th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
FYI…Chadiha will be doing pieces for the training camp tour
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/trainingcamp07/news/story?id=2934152&CMP=OTC-DT9705204233
July 25th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I’ll miss Silver at SI.com. Mike is one of the writer’s I actively look for on the site.
That said, I do like their other writer’s more than espn.com’s. Heyman, Banks, King and Z are damn good in their respective areas.
Silver’s hip take on the NFL and life in general will be missed at si.com.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
anybody else think si’s print offering is slipping? the first 30-40% of the magazine seems to be the short article/online content that i used to associate with the espn the magazine. there seem to be fewer quality articles in si these days.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Word Dave. I don’t understand why people get all stoked on T&A pics on sports sites. There’s hardcore nudity everywhere on the net, go find it.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:40 am
Writing that you don’t care about pop culture on a sports blog like the big lead makes as much sense as writing that you don’t care about Boston sports after a Simmons column. If you want straight news with no pop culture references or bikini pictures stick to the sports wire and the agate page. Markazi is no wordsmith, in fact I would probably hire a copy editor to sift through his copy full time, but he does what he does (cover the sports/celebrity party scene?) well. Page 2 even hired some guy recently to do basically the same thing he does out in LA, so it must be working. Although I must admit I was never a big fan of that Page 3/ESPN Hollywood kind of journalism.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:36 am
Losing Franz Lidz was like passing a kidney stone.This guy leaving was a loss to SI?????? Are you wacko?………..
July 26th, 2007 at 4:44 am
Paul Zimmerman is a smelly old crotch. This clown should be known as Dr. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. How funny were those car commercials with a guy who calls himself Dr. Z and has never even acknowldeged that this schnook at SI even existed? Shows you the impact this fraud has had…….
July 26th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Mc G, you are an idiot. You may not like Steve Rushin and he may have lost his fastball but to claim he’s not talented is among the more inane ever. The guy’s won National Magazine writing awards while you have a headline on your site that reads “If there is Fluff on the Muff, she is old Enough.”
The addition of Silver makes Yahoo! a major football player. Cole and Robinson are solid and you just added a guy who wrote every SI Super Bowl story in the 2000s. Nice move, Yahoo!
July 26th, 2007 at 7:31 am
It’s a bit of a reach to compare Sterger’s “here’s what I’m doing this week” columns to anything else on SI.com. It is what it is, for better or worse and I think we’re all leaning towards the latter no matter how many hits it gets. I’m not a huge Markazi fans but his Boise State piece after the Fiesta Bowl and open letter to Jon Lester were two of the better pieces I’ve read on the site. Too bad most of his other stories are wasted at whatever open bar party he’s covering.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Ironically, FanNation was really just a collection of blogs before the purchase, not really message boards (though they are buried on the site but not used much). So I guess SI was following your advice after all.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:21 am
WTF? Silver was up for that ESPN gig but I heard he wanted too much cash and the guys the Magazine has are already doing better stuff. David Flemming and Seth Wickershem are two of the best. If you actually read the features in that magazine they’re usually ten times better than stories in SI, save for the rare Gary Smith piece. Jst my opinion.