Seattle's Soft Media

Mike Tirico made some comments last night that flew right past me, but really hit a nerve with some people at KJR. To paraphrase, Tirico suggested that Seattle's media wouldn't be as aggressive in pursuing the Holmgren vs. Mora narrative should the Seahawks stumble out of the gates. He specifically made reference to some of the larger east coast cities (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc) as examples of 'tough' media markets, and specifically referred to them as towns 'with multiple newspapers and sports radio' (that's a near-exact quote, taken from memory from hearing it 20 times on Mitch's show).

As I said, what Tirico said didn't initially bother me, but as I listened to it again (repeatedly), the sheer ridiculousness of the statement, and the ignorance it reveals, did get to me a bit. Anybody that's familiar with Seattle sports media would know, at a bare minimum, that the Seattle Times and Seattle P.I. cover all Seattle-area sports (that's two, Tirico). In reality, three major papers cover Seattle sports - those two plus the Tacoma News Tribune - as do a number of smaller papers (the Everett Herald comes to mind). As for sports radio, KJR is a highly-rated sports talk station in the 11th largest media market (I learned that from the Sonics trial). And, as Mitch pointed out, New York has only one full-time local sports talk station (WFAN).

So, I can whine about this, but in reality I'm hardly bothered about it. I'm used to Seattle getting treated like it's in Alaska by the generics in the national media. I grew up in Seattle, spending the first 19 years of my life upset (not really, but kind of, in a sports way) that the national media had an east coast bias. Then I moved to LA, where I've spent the last 8 years and gained some perspective.

There certainly is some bias, but it's not purely directed at the east coast. Los Angeles teams have no problems getting noticed. Bay Area teams are equally covered. To some extent, San Diego teams are well represented. Hell, just look at the Arizona Cardinals, a team that the national media has repeatedly despite real evidence to support such sentiments. It's not an east coast bias. It's an anything-but-the-provincial-northwest bias.

Seattle really is ridiculously far away from all other parts of the counter. If you were to calculate the expected value of a United States citizen in the contiguous 48 states, Seattle would surely be the furthest (major) city from. Combine such proximity with Seattle's reputation as a gloomy city (never mind that it's the most beautiful place on earth during the summer) and its lack of a reputation as a destination city (no conventions, no industry hubs, a tourism industry hurt by its rainy reputation) and you get a discarded sports market.