The party itself was a transcendent bacchanal, but now the hangover has set in. We had a transcendent euphoria of a time, but now the huge bill is due and the nausea and headaches are severe. It doesn’t mean we have any regrets at all about what we experienced, but it does make us wonder where we go from here.
The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series for the first time in 108 years was the last Great American Sports News Story (Capitalization Intentional). Everything else that’s happened since seems inconsequential by comparison.
On November 2nd, 2016 the Chicago Cubs achieved something that was so much more than local Chicago news, or national sports news. It’s was national, international “where were you when the moment occurred?” kind of news. After this point, there is was nowhere to go but down, so it’s only natural that everything else that’s happened since then seems less significant.
It’s because everything else that’s happened in sports since the Cubs winning it all has been much less significant.
Leave it to the great American poet of the 1990s Harlem Renaissance (at least it was for the Bad Boy label in the hip-hop industry) Sean Puffy Combs to encapsulate life in the sports media after the Chicago Cubs World championship.
Puff Daddy (joined by Jay-Z) rapped in “Do you like it, do you want it.“
Where do you go from here when you felt you’ve done it all
When what used to get you high don’t get you high no more
When you got a lot of cars, don’t even drive no more
When you’re expected to win, they ain’t surprised no more
So where do we go from here? Well, if I knew the answer I wouldn’t even be posting this in the first place. It doesn’t help that the sports media industry is in dire straits. Television networks owned and operated by the leagues/teams themselves are a horrific parasite eradicating the sports journalism enterprise.
They are a plague to sports journalists today, and to sports fans tomorrow. It’s not just the TV networks degenerating what corporatists would call “the space” in today’s business buzz word speak. It’s simple over-saturation too. It’s not just sports media but the news division too. And it’s not just newspapers (which has seen 2/3 of its jobs eradicated since 2001), but TV and radio too are in trouble.
The long term outlook for media is just as pessimistic as it is for retail. You can see that detailed by both Salon and the New York Times this week.
So when I say the Chicago Cubs were the last great American sports news story, it’s contextual. I have no clue what the next big story will be, but when it arrives the sports media industry will be a completely different place, and it will be covered in a totally different framework.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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