Written by Eboy
Online Icon.......Facebook sex symbol.......SLAM Online Editor In Chief.....what doesn't this guy do? The long awaited second part of SKO's SLAM Interview Series turns it's attention to the new blood turning the SLAMonline experience into the way of the future that all other sports-minded websites should format copy in the future. From one-time commenter to Online EIC, Ryne Nelson is doing it big and were ready to hear just how he got it done.
SKO: What was the process of getting the nod to take over the SLAM site as OEIC?
RN: At the risk of sounding like a women’s life improvement author, let me just say this: Had I not traveled the highs and lows of my four University years, I wouldn’t know what I know about myself today and I wouldn’t be in the position that I am. I won’t get into most of the college experience. I will, however, fast forward to where most of you at SKO got to know me: January 2008.
It began with me sitting on my couch, staring at the wall. I spent my last winter break at home, shackled in an unhealthy obsession with my fantasy basketball team. I made more trades in that month than I had in the past five years. I read some comic books—a side interest I picked up a year earlier while working the weekend graveyard shift at a sandwich joint during the school year—listened to some podcasts, hung out with friends, caught some Bulls games, shoveled the driveway a record number of times, and churned through the bestseller Eat, Pray, Love. It was a good break overall—I felt I had learned a few things, stayed busy—but I traveled back through the frozen winter crop fields to Champaign, IL with a guilty feeling of over-consumption. I felt as I had too often in my recent past—that I took more than I gave back. I feared that I was becoming defined by what I read and watched and saw and found than what I could produce. To top it off, this was in my final semester, and I knew people who work produce something of value to society.
I knew I could do this—be that person who created content that people like myself were always actively pursuing—it was just a matter of figuring out what content I could produce better than everyone else. My options were endless—I had the entire Internet available to me.
I had an old basketball blog, deftly called The InkSpot. It was my public writing portfolio during the summer of 2005 when I was trying as hard as I could to become an NBA columnist. By the time 2008 rolled around, the blog was dead for all intents and purposes, but I decided I would bring it back to life as I began to once again produce content. I was writing daily about articles and quotes I found in the news—very similar to what Marcel Mutoni and all the other great bloggers out there do. I haven’t deleted any of it, so you can go back through the archives and check it out. I definitely was rusty on the writing after taking several years away from the blog.
I was one poor college kid, so poor, in fact that I didn’t own a television. This was a huge blessing in disguise because it made me look to the internet and podcasting and… online streaming video for entertainment. A former editor told me about a site called BallHype, which was extremely valuable to me at the time because it completely reshaped the way I thought about the online ‘buzz’ factor.
You can be the best blog writer in the word, and no one will ever consistently link to your work. It will be a rare occasion that all the major sports blogs will do so. The only way to build a large readership is to consistently produce good work for a long time, like Bethlehem Shoals and the rest of the FreeDarko crew. I didn’t have that time, though. I learned this quick and started to break it down in my head. It all went something like this:
What the Internets care about in basketball:
1) What players do and say off the court.
2) What players do on the court.
Just those two things. Like most bloggers, I was sitting on my couch—I didn’t have access to the players, so I wasn’t going to breaking news any time soon. I could get in-touch via email with beat writers, which made me one degree apart from these players, but they weren’t going to give me scoops—it’s in a reporter’s contract to report news only through their publication. Running interviews with reporters and columnists wasn’t going to work because, let’s face it, these guys are most just vessels through which news spreads about NBA players. Only the freakish athletes themselves are of interest. So that left me with this:
What could I produce (remember, it’s all about being able to produce unique content) about players that I had access to (from my couch)?
Well, I didn’t have the locker room, but I could have the broadcasts if I worked hard enough. What players can do on the court happen to be what people care about the most.
My biggest challenge was finding the games on my computer. I didn’t have $100+ to fork over for League Pass, so I searched through the message boards to find streams. It was the Golden Age of digital NBA broadcasts because those with League Pass could share the streams with anyone. I soon learned were I could find these links to the live streams and soon learned the etiquette of how to ask for and use these streams. I felt a lot like a helpless dog asking my master for food, “Heat/Sonics, please… Does anyone have a stream for the Rockets/Magic?” But once I got the streams, I could watch more than one at a time. As I progressed, I trained my eye for what might make a funny or dramatic clip to upload to YouTube. I made sure not to waste time capturing highlights because that’s not what people wanted to talk about the next day anyway.
I’m proud to say that in just three months, my YouTube channel hadover 2,400 subscribers and several 1 million+ viewed videos. When I wasn’t at class or watching games, I made relevant comments on message boards—RealGM, NikeTalk, InsideHoops, Basketball Forum—and the large basketball blogs—SLAMonline, FanHouse, Ball Don’t Lie. I used Digg, StumbleUpon and Twitter to expand my audience. Twitter, at the time, was a top-three traffic source for me because I spent time to find people who were interested in basketball and made sure to @reply everyone. This was a time well before any athlete or celebrity was tweeting, so it was much more enjoyable to me. Twitter was just a new distraction for tech geeks, but it was a good use of my time. The 24-year-old male Digg demographic always ate up my videos—my captures hit the front page with ease about four times a week during the height of everything.
I watched every game of NBA basketball for several months, and it was wild. My love for the game was renewed. My blog was grew by the day. I was huge on BallHype, my ultimate barometer for success. I was known for something—something that no one else did. I gained momentum to the point where I believed that my YouTube channel could be more popular than the NBA’s Channel in a few seasons. I figured they’d have no choice but to notice me… as they needed to reevaluate their cookie cutter upload policy.
When I was about to graduate, I reached out to Lang to see if he knew anyone who was interested in a guy with good community management skills who also knew the game pretty well. Sam Rubenstein was looking to pass on the torch, and the rest is history.
During those months before my graduation, I made so many great connections and had so many great conversations, I felt like it was one of the best times of my life. But I had to completely turn my world on its head to do so. I no longer went out on the weekends—I was always watching basketball. I became known for video capturing, not my writing or reporting, which is how I thought I’d make it for many years. I became a leader in online streaming video and discovered it was one of my true callings. Of course, I couldn’t do it forever. For one thing, I couldn’t make a living off it as I owned none of the rights to the videos. I had a rapidly growing audience, and countless advertisers wanted to place ads on my site, but I always turned them down. Producing video is one thing—I was appreciative that the NBA and its partners allowed fans to essentially break copyright and upload clips on the ‘Net—but earning money from a product that wasn’t mine was wrong. In addition, the League changed its streams this season such that doing what I did last season would be virtually impossible. Who even knows if I have the bradwidth to watch multiple games simultaneously like before? Without getting into the nitty gritty details, let’s just say the NBA made it very, very difficult to capture video from a live stream, which isn’t a smart move, since they’re only losing free advertising on YouTube.
A lot of things in my life now seem to have come full circle. What’s funny is I tried to tell everyone that I was either going to be an NBA writer or broadcaster during the summer leading up to college. People tried to convince me to go into a math-related field (I scored a perfect 36 on my ACT Math; missed one question—an algebra question!—on my SAT Math and never received any grade other than an A in math class), but I knew I couldn’t live a life of numbers. I knew I liked to lead, and I loved basketball. I had my many years as a fantasy basketball commissioner to thank for that. Despite all the changes, twists and turns during the following four years, despite how much I convinced myself that I wanted a different career, it’s deeply ironic that when it mattered most, I gravitated back to what I cared most about: basketball. I also started writing like a madman in 2005, produced basketball videos in 2008 and once again find myself back into writing and editing stories about basketball in 2009. There couldn’t be a more perfect bookend to wrap around the chronicles of my collegiate experience.
See, now I’ve lost half the readers after just the first question. But you hit me with the loaded joint to start it all off—I guarantee if you saved this for the end, you’d get all this condensed into about two sentences. Yes, I’m that good at editing by now!
SKO: What are the future plans for the site since you are a master of technology?
RN: It’s not really the technology, it’s the content. What it all comes down to is being remarkable at something and having unique ideas. If you’re producing the right content, technology will work for you. So I don’t worry about the technology until I can discover something to be the linchpin of the site, something that every big sports blog will feel obliged to link to and every basketball fan will visit us daily for.
Right now, the site is very good at producing feature stories, opinion columns and, in general, being a great place to discuss the current NBA happenings with other dedicated hoops fans. This means SLAMonline can be around for a long time, but to take things to the next level, there needs to be a buzz coming from the site. It needs something huge. Something that can only be found on SLAMonline. We can’t break news like ESPN, and we ultimately cannot rely on posting highlight videos or the most opinion columns.
What it comes down to is finding something that only we can produce that everyone wants. I’ve put a lot of thought into what this may be, but the thoughts have too often been littered with “can’t.” Maybe I need to take a month’s sabbatical to meditate and eat vegetarian in order to find out what that may be. The last time I did that I conned half my fantasy league and created a videocapping website. Some people say “can’t” shouldn’t be a part of the successful person’s vocabulary. I’m not afraid of it—the word “can’t” has always been my motivation.
SKO: Do you view things in the media at a different perspective now that you are actually an insider to it?
RN: Yes, I do look at certain things in the media differently now.
When I met writers, the magical reverence disappears away. Writers on popular website are celebrities to a certain extent. When you get a chance to meet them, you find they’re very nice people who happen to be painfully normal. To give you a picture of how most of the NBA media looks like, picture Joe the Plumber and mix in a little more average. I have trouble imagining the last time most of my colleagues played basketball. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, because there’s a big difference between covering basketball and being able to play basketball. The only physically astonishing media are select sideline reporters and ex-players. So when I read someone’s article, I now picture the writer as someone like you or me, not some larger-than-life personality.
That covers looks, but I also found that having a “voice and face for print” will soon become a reporter’s career death knell as more media shifts toward the television and streaming video. Reporters need to be able to do it all—look good on camera, sound good on radio, write well. He needs to have confidence and experience. The gap between a reporter and a blogger or commenter or simply a basketball fan isn’t as wide as you’d imagine. Reporters are like everyone else, just with a boost of daring and a shake of ego.
SKO: Being an Illinois graduate, what do you think of the Illini's chances in the NCAA Tourney?
RN: I wish I could have this sort of mulligan with the rest of my bracket. Sorry for my procrastination!
SKO: Since you are a Bulls fan, where do you see them in 2 years?
RN: I normally don’t look that far ahead with the Bulls, but since that will be in the aftermath of the Summer of 2010, it’ll be sort of fun to make some bold predictions. I’ll need to bookmark this and see how many of these things are correct in 2011. Alright, on March 21, 2011, the Chicago Bulls, at the very best…
-Will not be coached by Vinny Del Negro.
-Will have its first All-Star since Jordan.
-Will have a record of 38-31.
-Will be on that edge of being a Contender.
-Will no longer have Tyrus Thomas, Ben Gordon Kirk Hinrich and Brad Miller.
Why will the Bulls be better? For one, they can’t get worse. I believe the prospect of playing with Derrick Rose will attract an All-Star forward free agent. I think they’re in prime position to draft a steal in June (an impact player is likely to fall to mid-first round in this enigmatic Draft). Without many faces of the past, the Bulls finally will not have too much talent for their own good. The team will belong to Rose and an All-Star forward yet to be named. If they can somehow trade for Andrew Bogut and get a coach who knows what he’s doing, they’ll be on their way to building a solid team.
And, yes, like every fan, I’m probably way too optimistic.
SKO: Do you ever get tired of people calling you "Ryan" instead of "Ryne"? And is “Rynocerous” a term of endearment?
RN: I’ve heard someone call me almost any name that that begins with an “R,” including Renee, Rin, Rynee, and most commonly Ryan. But I’ve never heard Rynocerous until I started commenting on SLAMonline over a year ago. First off, I don’t remember exactly who dubbed me this nickname (if someone finds the exact post, I would nominate him for induction into the SLAMonline Hall of Fame, which isn’t a bad idea, eh?)(Ed Note: This nickname was originally coined by yours truly), but I actually think it’s incredibly inventive. I, at the time, didn’t like it—I actually told everyone they call me anything but that name, and that’s why it stuck. Quickly, I didn’t mind the nickname, and even sooner, I began to appreciate it. The fact that I had a nickname meant I was accepted. It means a lot to have respect from some of the most dedicated and knowledgeable basketball minds out there. It means even more that everyone is sticking around while I’m learning the ropes of this Online Editor thing.
SKO: With what looks like the death of newspapers, where do you see the future of online sports blogs?
RN: Sports blogs are a good thing. News is a good thing. We’re coming to a time where one can’t exist without the other. I’ve given a lot of thought into this over the past year or so, and there are a couple ways I can see this playing out. It’s all as bad as some people consider, though.
Physical newspapers will be gone within 25 years. That’s inevitable. I think the papers with the strongest legacy and circulation will be among the first to commit to an online-only product. Every day newspapers print another issue, they’re wasting money. News is free and news is now instant. Newspapers are neither of those things.
Newspapers will die, but I believe newsgathering will remain online. There will always be a need for information and real people who can report it. Reporting will survive and thrive as soon as a new online revenue paradigm is realized. A way to look at this in a positive sense is that only the best reporters will survive. Blogs merely take reporter’s work, link to the stories, comment about the news, and recommend people read the actual article if they want more information.
In the immediate future, we’ll continue to see increases in opinion writing. In today’s internet culture, why would a fledgling writer go “through the ropes,” reporting on men’s volleyball for three years for their school newspaper before they gain seniority enough to finally cover the men’s basketball team? Why would they take that route when they could write an opinion column online and get NBA game credentials with essentially the snap of a finger?
People are smart—if they can bypass the old hierarchical stepladder, they will. So I see the internet breeding younger writers who can write a controversial column, but lacking in journalistic grounding. He’ll never meet the players. He’ll know nothing about them besides the 35 minutes per game that they play every game, and that’s if they’re watching. So many great basketball beat writers turned to ESPN and are now mostly writing columns or power rankings. The closest they do to reporting is texting in “news” to their editor, who then relays the information online and on the Bottom Line. This is what young writers have to strive for if they want to work in basketball.
Blogs have a future because you get the commenter culture and all the news, but even those are becoming watered down. They’re full of Photoshoped photos and caption contests—things that have very little to do with reporting. People will care about a solid news report, but they seem to care more about what people are saying about the news. So these “funny” (and ultimately and unashamedly shallow) blogs will be tremendously popular, and people will bookmark them rather than the local news site… because you’re just connected more with a blog.
And who blogs? Certainly not someone who needs locker room access. Young writers will focus on their RSS reader instead of players and their stories. All the while, they’re sitting alone in front of a screen for nearly all of their waking hours. It’s “earning your stripes” 2.0—the more time you spend online, blogging, the better your chances of getting paid for it. The only problem is hardly anyone has turned blogging into a full-time job. It’s not easy and it’s only going to get more difficult as niches are carved out and divided online. So it’s a Catch 22—there are a lot of people who write about basketball, but there are only two basketball bloggers who do it full time. Beat writing jobs are just as scarce with the demise of newspapers. So people turn to the internet, keeping all their fingers and toes crossed that one day, they’ll be lucky enough to find work. For some, it will work. Many others will find they put their eggs into a basket that very well may have the bottom cut out of it.
There has to be a happy medium. Whether it’s encompassing all of these elements or just picking and choosing which elements you want to focus on, something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now. People don’t have time to visit numerous basketball sites every day. They’ll go to the sites that do it best, and as newspapers and magazines gradually transition to the web-only, it’ll be a question of how well they’ve been able to grow their site, and whether they have something unique that people will have interest in. If not, the entire brand will die.
SLAM Magazine did phenomenally well because it is and was the only publication of its kind. Is SLAMonline the only basketball website of its kind? Do people visit it because it’s the best at what it does? Or… is its traffic due in large part to the magazine’s success? At some point SLAMonline needs to make a name for itself, or it will be an endangered species. Which leads us nicely to…
SKO: Does SLAM in print form run the risk of not existing soon and do you foresee the day that SLAM will just be an all-encompassing website?
Like all magazines, SLAM Magazine will reach a day when it is no longer profitable. It still seems that advertisers and marketers would still rather be in print than online—although stats show more eyeballs check out the website every month than the magazine. Magazines are different than newspapers because they generally look deeper—they run longer features, have original photo shoots. Magazines have things that we might read if we’re stuck on a train, cab or plane. But when people have internet access everywhere—which is almost true now—the focus will almost entirely shift to “quick news, all the time.” Even a long opinion piece on SLAMonline will dangerously stretch the attention span of a busy commuter. Maybe it will get even more diluted into mobile applications.
This isn’t to say people won’t be interested in reading long-form features and opinion, they’re just not going to pay for it. I see people all gravitating to a common site—when I was in J School, professors warned of the conglomeration of newspapers and the death of local news. The same will happen online. One, maybe too, sites will be the source for all breaking sports news and the best opinion. It’s going to be one hell of a tough act to ball against the big boys, and it already is.
SKO: Do you believe that the blogs dilute and therefore weaken the level of sports coverage today?
RN: I think it’s the opposite. Without blogs, do you think there would be half as much coverage? I, for one, follow basketball much closer than I ever have due in large part to the proliferation of blogs. I read many more opinions and hard news reports. People find the important news for me, and help to keep me informed. I can’t complain about that. The opinions of bloggers may be completely skewed and uninformed, but there’s no questioning the value that news gathers have.
If anyone, the media itself is diluting the level of coverage. It stuck with its traditional ways and didn’t evolve quickly enough into the new space. If newspapers can no longer support their writers and beat reporters, it’s the newspaper’s fault, not the blogs. In my view, blogs and bloggers actually support sports coverage and will eventually act as a chief supporter of quality reporting, regardless of where it comes from.
SKO: Working for SLAM, is there ever a struggle with the content versus demographic issue?
RN: This is the toughest question for me, possibly because I haven’t given much thought to this yet. For the most part, I always thought the content SLAM provides is on par with what our demographic is looking for. We’re writing for college-age males, as is most in sports media. Basketball has culture. As long as we stay true to that culture and accurately portray it, we feel we’re delivering what our readers want. Attitude and staying true to the game allowed SLAM to separate itself from the pack from the very beginning. If you miss the old SLAM, as some readers say, then you probably miss the old game of basketball.
Our readers pride themselves on being true to the game and they deserve a publication that doesn’t settle for anything less. We hope we’ve delivered the truth consistently for the past 15+ years.
SKO: Make a case for Deron again, it all seems so plausible on paper?
Deron Williams is a winner. His determination to win is unparalleled by any point guard in the game today. He’s durable. His knowledge of the game is unrivaled. He can guard big or small opponents. He’s deadly from the outside as well as when he slashes to the rim. Most of all, he’s ruthlessly pursuing a championship—his drive is probably overlooked because of players like Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant. Deron Williams has the same killer look in his eyes whenever it gets to a close-game situation. He keeps his calm and makes big plays when it counts. He’s realistic when things don’t work out and keeps a very level head.
Deron Williams is the type of leader every franchise hopes to draft. There are a lot of players with great talent, but the legends have an intangible motivation and leadership quality. When he walks by, folks take notice. His stats will never match with the greatest statistical seasons of all time, but I think it’s fair to say that no statistical equation can ever accurately determine a player’s value. Yeah, it’s a nice part of sports to be able to compare Chris Paul to Isiah Thomas and LeBron James to Michael Jordan, but box scores don’t paint a complete picture. Deron’s intangible leadership and toughness is why I think the Jazz traded up to pick at No. 3 in 2005. This is why Jerry Sloan, the ultimate tough guy and winner, wanted a leader like Deron Williams over a statistical monster and wizard with the basketball in Chris Paul.
If he hasn’t already, Deron Williams will earn your trust—trust that he’ll make the right play down the stretch, trust that he’ll represent a team well, trust that he won’t lapse on defense, trust that he will never back down, trust that he’ll never lose confidence in himself and, most importantly… his team. You’ll trust that Deron Williams will win a championship and when he has one, he’ll want more.
Oh, and you have to trust him even more because he attended the best University on earth!
SKO: Who, in your opinion, has the biggest impact on the game of basketball today?
RN: Michael Jordan. Just because he’s not playing doesn’t mean that his impact isn’t as powerful. As big of “superstars” as they are, when Kobe or LeBron say something, would it resonate half as powerfully as is if Michael said it? Not now, not ever.
SKO: With having more access than you've ever had and basketball being your dayjob, does this make you more or less of a fan of the sport and it’s players?
RN: I’m blessed to be able to work in basketball, and I hope to continue to do so for the rest of my life. That said, I have not become more or less of a fan of the sport or its players since coming on for SLAM. Sure, my perspective drastically changed, and I’m sure it will only continue to evolve over the years, but when you’re hooked on a game, it’s impossible for anything to alter that love.
I’m sure you’ve experienced the same thing to a certain extent over the years. The way you view the game might be different that it was 10 or 20 years ago, but there’s still that deep passion for the game inside of you. That’s what keeps your motor going. That’s what draws you to the arena, to the broadcasts, to the blogs and websites.
I know I’ll always be the same fan of the game because, despite all the changes that have occurred to me as a person, my passion for that game has been one of the few things that remain unwaveringly constant. It’s a comfort and a guiding force.
SKO: You are now second in what SKO hopes will be a series of interviews with the SLAM fam....the first being Ryan Jones. Any sense of dread following such a literary champion?
RN: Yes, and I’d like to say that dread forced me to take so long to complete this interview. But… If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working with so many brilliant writers, it’s that comparison is unfair. When you can truly say you’ve done the best of your ability, that dread of “living up” to expectations is forgotten.
