Episode 133 Snippets: Greg Wyshynski of ESPN

BEST OF THE DIGITAL AND
SOCIAL MEDIA SPORTS PODCAST
EPISODE 133: GREG WYSHYNSKI
On episode 133 of the Digital and Social Media Sports
Podcast, Neil chatted with Greg Wyshynski, Senior NHL Writer
for ESPN, previously of Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy.
What follows is a collection of snippets from the podcast. To
hear the full interview and more, check out the podcast on all
podcast platforms and at www.dsmsports.net
@njh287; www.dsmsports.net

Greg's Career Path
Greg grew up enjoying sports journalism living in the Northeast →
Attended University of Maryland at the college of journalism → Worked
for a chain of weekly newspapers in Virginia called The Connection,
eventually becoming sports editor for all 23 or so of the newspapers,
while also doing freelance hockey writing for magazines → Then
became a hockey writer for AOL Fanhouse (which had quite a few high-
level bloggers) → He also spent a year as a hockey writer at Deadspin
(“The best commenters”)
→ Greg then got hooked up with Jamie Mottram and led a growing
hockey blog at Yahoo Sports, which became Yahoo where he spent
several years → Then went to ESPN to lead their NHL coverage, where
he remains today

“It's gotten easier (to get into journalism) because now...there are
legit opportunities for you in this industry if you are willing to
work hard, if you are willing to do a great number of different
things at the same time in order to increase your value to the
company because you need to be able to write, you need to be
able to do camera work, and you need to be able to podcast; you
need to be a multimedia star, basically, if you want to break into
the industry...But if you can do all of those things, people will
want to hire you...that's really the path to get in at this point, I
think.”

On building a brand first as a 'blogger' and an 'online' writer
“When I left the newspaper to work at Yahoo full-time, that was a decision to
make. It's hard today to think about the idea that there was a time when you had
to choose between print and digital...But back in 2008, I had to go to Yahoo
(they were trying to pay me part-time...Luckily they took a chance (on me full-
time)...
“As far as the voice goes...I'm not the same age as Bill Simmons, but I'm at
least within spitting distance. He kind of gets credited for being the first guy to
blend pop culture with sportswriting and do it comedically...I feel like there's a
lot of us that were starting to do that at the same time, but God bless Bill for
breaking out when he did. But that's always sort of been my voice – to not
necessarily take all of these things so seriously [Greg mentions his Puck Daddy
staff generally had a 'three joke rule' in their posts]...to keep one foot in the
satirical pool...

“When I was coming up, the notion of being a voice, a popular
voice or a voice with a following in hockey coverage that wasn't
Canadian was kind of alien at that point. What I wanted to offer
was the antithesis of what the Canadian media offered; which was
stodgy, and super-serious, and didn't necessarily speak to the fan
experience all that much. A lot of kind of writing for your sources
and historical navel-gazing, versus talking about goofy jerseys
and ticket prices and what was being thrown on the ice.

“My take was have fun with it, but also, when necessary, treat it
with the import...(Growing up in New York and consuming the
print and radio media there) there was sort of a delusional
seriousness and importance given to sports by the consumers of
the product. It always pissed me off when a fan's opinion about
something that's real passionate like a coach being fired or a
trade that should be made, or a player not getting it done is
dismissed – because those people pay a lot of money to go to
those games and they dedicate a lot of their time to follow these
teams. And the idea that you can't write about the passion and
cover those topics with an eye toward what the fans are feeling
and think is doing a disservice to the industry.”

On creating the Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy brand
“There was a couple of things I had to sell them on as fa as that
format went. One that was we could really push the envelope into
weird places. The first year that (Sean) Leahy and I were running
Puck Daddy, we ran a Gary Bettman Photoshop contest, which I
don't think the other blogs were necessarily looking to do at that
point in Yahoo...We had hundreds and hundreds of people submit
photos of like Gary Bettman as Marilyn Monroe, Gary Bettman as
The Predator; it was fantastic. Looking back on it, it was a miracle
I ever got a credential, but it was pretty amazing.

“But the other thing I had to sell them on was frequency. Part of the thing
that I wanted to do at Puck Daddy was based on my experience at
Deadspin. I'm thinking of that guy or that girl at the office who's sitting in
their cubicle, they're stuck there the whole day, they're looking for stuff to
do – and I wanted there to be something every hour of that day for them to
read that was going to be new and different. That was the Deadpsin model
– to constantly be updating and flooding the zone with posts, and I anted
us to do the same thing, which was not necessarily the purview of the
other blogs – they were writing on a kind of a need-to-cover basis.
“But I wanted it to be a situation where, even if it was a short, pithy thing
like a YouTube highlight from the KHL (Russia's major pro hockey league),
I wanted to have something there that was news every hour, and that was
the goal for Sean and me and the other writers.”

The Emergence of Social Media for Greg and Puck Daddy
“I was an early adopter of Twitter...The moment I realized that it
was going to be important was the night of the playoff game
between the Penguins and Capitals when Sidney Crosby and
Alexander Ovechkin both had hat tricks in the same game, and
Crosby, after the game, complained that there were too many hats
on the ice in Washington and it took too long to clean them off the
ice. I was in the press conference, and I had just started on
Twitter, and I tweeted his comment. And at the time there wasn't
live postgame coverage of his press conference; it would be
something that would be on the video posted 20-25 minutes later
on one of the team websites.

So I tweet that quote...and I left the press conference and went
back to my computer in the writers' room and this thing went just
mega-viral. People were like 'He didn't really say that, right?'
because no one had seen it anywhere else, it was only in realtime
on Twitter that they saw that quote. And that was the moment
when I was really like 'Ah, geez, the game ha changed now, hasn't
it?'

“I've had an interesting relationship with Twitter; I think at times I
have definitely veered off into myopic, petty arguments way too
often. I think that's a product of having my first inklings
sportswriting having been writing on news groups when I was in
college and arguing with people all day long on Devils and Flyers
news groups about hockey, and I feel like that part of me comes
out on Twitter way too often. But it's been a way for people to see
through parts of my personality; it's not always hockey on my
Twitter feed; neither ESPN nor Yahoo owned it. There's a lot about
movies and sometimes politics and a lot of stuff about beer. I
think from that aspect, it's let people know a good more about me.

“For me, the biggest crossing the rubicon to allowing people to
know me better and building a following was probably through the
podcasts. It's a medium that allows you to really be yourself, to
engage in conversations, to let people hear your voice, let people
know about your life. I've done now four of them – I did Puck
Daddy Radio...I did Marek vs. Wyshynski, which is where most
people got to know me, and now I have two (with) ESPN on Ice
and Puck Soup. Those things, I think, did more than anything to
let people kind of in and understand me better beyond anything
I've written.”

Being an early podcaster
“Three of the four, for the most part, have had big media partners.
Puck Daddy Radio was something I did with The Score in Canada,
sort of a shared enterprise with them and Yahoo, and it was good,
it was a daily show (and) it was good for what it was. And then
(Jeff) Marek and I got together (via) a partnership between Yahoo
and Sportsnet, and that was great – working with Jeff and building
what was then at the time a really unique and trailblazing podcast,
in my opinion, on hockey. There hadn't been one (prior) that was
as engaging as ours, and the following we built...

“With ESPN On Ice, that was a situation where, the minute I got
hired I [said] 'We're going to do a podcast.' The podcasts in the
past at ESPN have been sort of all over the map...I wanted it to be
more in the vein of Puck Daddy Radio and MvsW [Marek vs.
Wyshynski podcast] in the sense that we were going to talk to the
newspapers and cover the topics of the day. And I wanted [ESPN
national NHL reporter] Emily [Kaplan] to be a part of it because I
felt like, for it to be a way for people to understand our coverage
and understand what's happening at ESPN, it was super-
important to have her involved; and plus, she's awesome...I think
that we've gotten better over time and the show is great now.

“Puck Soup is interesting – it started out as part of the Nerdist
network. Jonah Keri, big baseball journalist, was starting a sports
vertical there that kind of never took off and kind of fell apart; so we
left. And that's the example of – you can do this thing without a media
partner. (Cohost Dave) Lozo and I took it independent, we work with
Midroll to sell ads, we have a producer that we pay, and last year we
started a Patreon subscription service, which has been more
successful than any of us anticipated....($5/month to get four
mailbags, a bonus podcast, and a listeners' choice podcast)
“It's been a crazy, great and satisfying thing to not only be able to
produce extra content for the people that dig the show, but to have so
subscribe to something like that – its been really cool.”

On starting at ESPN and driving their NHL content
“I think [ESPN] wanted what I did at Puck Daddy – just having an
eye and a finger on the pulse of what the fans are talking about
and the stories that resonate with them. I did a lot more writing for
fans than I did writing for my sources at Puck Daddy, and I think
that's something that ESPN found appealing. On top of that, they
know that I'm someone who can bang out a story , write a feature,
but also] write some opinion when necessary. If nothing else, I'd
like in the next year or two, to be able to be able to do a bit more
opinion, whether it's on video or written. I think, in the first year,
you have to establish your bonafides first in that place and then
you can get a little more opinionated as time goes on.

“As far as the 'ESPN doesn't cover hockey' thing [editor's note: my
prompt] – it really isn't as relevant now as it maybe was a few years
ago. When I was hired there, there was a lot of conversation about
where the sport was, and where the upper management there saw
the sport going, with McDavid and with Matthews and with Laine,
and all these incredible young stars in the league now, and the fact
that you can turn on a game and be somewhat confident you might
see them do something. Whereas 15 years ago, you would turn on a
game and hope to see a goal; it's a different sport right now. It's a
sport where the stars are able to shine and the highlights are
spectacular, and it's a bit easier to sell these things to a casual
sports fan audience than maybe it around (the time of) the lost
season (when the NHL had a lockout result in a canceled season).

“Then on top of that, the fact that we have ESPN+ now and that we
have nightly highlight show with Linda Cohn and [John]
Buccigross and NHL Games on every night as part of our MLB
Advanced Media deal means that our hand is back in the cookie
jar. And it's no secret that when ESPN has a piece of a sports
league or a sport itself, there is intense and increased coverage of
that sport.

“So the fact that we now have these games on ESPN+ means that
[NHL stories will get more prominent placement to help promote
their NHL games]...It's not only ESPN putting added value on NHL
coverage, but for me and Emily it's also a chance to get our stuff
featured more because it's tied into actual games that are being
shown. It's a mutually beneficial thing, and there's no question
(the NHL staff at ESPN) we can really feel the wind at our backs
now, we can really feel the momentum building at this place
building toward bigger and better coverage of the league.
“And I think it started last year – my first year – the coverage of
the Cup Final between Washington and Vegas was huge and
hugely successful, based on the numbers I saw.”

The editorial strategy and content objectives are for ESPN and who they're writing
for
“The first thing about that direction is that when we do run (fun content) it's the
same rule that we had at Puck Daddy, which is that we'll never just run something
just to run it; there has to be some value added to it in some way. And that's what
differentiate sites like ours from something like BarDown with TSN, which posts five
tweets and then just hits publish and then not actually give you anything beyond
that.
”I never want to be that. So that's rule #1 – always add value, always advance a
story; It's never enough to just write the news that everybody already knows, you
have to tell them the how and the why. And it's one of the reasons at Puck Daddy
that people used to come to us when news would break because they knew they
would get more than just an embed of a Darren Dreger tweet and then three
paragraphs that are built around it that's just rehashing you already know.

“As far as the overall direction goes - it's not all that different than
what I did at Yahoo. I am pitching the coverage to the widest
audience possible. That does not mean that I'm not covering
myopic things that hockey fans are gonna care about. We do
Power Rankings every week and we kind of get nerdy in them
sometimes, with analytics and team-by-team stuff. So not only are
you getting a ranking of teams, which is comfort food, but you're
also getting some good information inside of the post, as well.

“It's trying to just get people – the ones that have already
converted, the people that have already let the light of hockey into
their heart – to come read us and appreciate the coverage that
we're doing, but also creating entry points for people that maybe
either casual fans or mat not be familiar at all with the sport. As I
showed for ten years at Yahoo, there ways that you can pitch the
coverage to cast a net and catch a lot of people that might
otherwise have not been reading a hockey story.”

Greg's favorite super hero movie and the most overrated super hero movie
Favorite superhero movie: The Incredibles - “It's perfect. As a guy who waited
his whole life to see a legitimately great Fantastic Four movie that treats the
Fantastic Four as a family and not just a collection of bad CGI effects, The
Incredibles was comfort food for me in that aspect and also it's just a brilliantly
written and conceived movie.”
Overrated: “I'm still stunned that people liked Justice League in any way. I felt
like, much like Attack of the Clones was a movie built on an unsuccessful and
misguided film in The Phantom Menace that kind of made a bad thing worse, I
thought Justice League kind of did the same thing. I thought Batman vs.
Superman was terrible and Justice League was coming off a bad thing. Just a
giant chopped salad of garbage of a movie, but people defend it, so I don't
know what to tell you.”

Greg's favorite Puck Daddy post from his time at Yahoo
Greg goes with a post about a player in the Swedish league who was
caught on video pleasuring himself with a sex toy and the next time
they played their chief rivals, the ans of the rival team threw sex toys
on the ice to mock him.
“On top of that, I vividly remember the internal debates with editors on
how exactly to phrase half the post. Like 'could you use the word dildo
in a headline?' was an actual conversation I had with people at Yahoo.
It was a fun story and also a really good indication of the way of the
world back at Puck Daddy and what we tried to get away with, and what
we did get away with.”

The best interview Greg has done in his time covering the NHL –
whether player, coach, general manager, owner
Greg references his former Puck Daddy colleague Dmitry Chesnokov
and the interviews he would do in Russian and then translate to
English for the site
“[Dmitry] did these incredible longform Russian-language interviews
with guys like Alexander Semin and Pavel Datsyuk that he would then
translate to English. To this day, some of my favorite stuff I've ever
read from an NHL player came from this interviews because the
Russian guys are so much more comfortable speaking Russian. And
he and I worked up some incredible questions to ask these guys...”

If Greg became NHL Commissioner of the NHL tomorrow, what is
the first thing he'd do?
“I would make the game 4-on-4 at all times. I know it's fast and
super-fun right now, but at the end of the day if you want to attract
casual American sports fans, you need a multitude of scoring.
You can't necessarily have games that are soccer scores. And if
you want to attract a multitude of American sports wagerers, you
need a lot of scoring effects. So I'd go 4-on-4 at all times; I
apologize to all of the goalies in the audience...”

Greg's favorite NHL team on social media and why
“I still think the gold standard for Hockey Twitter remans the LA
Kings. They're consistently great. They brought on some really
smart people, including my friend The Royal Half, to be part of
their overall coverage, and I just think they do a really good job.
“But overall, Hockey Twitter for the teams – the world is separated
into three parts: the teams that can pull it off well, the teams that
try too hard to pull it off, and the teams that don't try to pull
anything off. I think there's way too many of them in that latter
category, to be honest with you...”

The NHL team with the press food / media meal
“Montreal's got, like, free hot dogs, which is pretty great...Tampa,
for a while, and I think they might still do this, did free personal
pizzas for a while in the press box. Which is pretty amazing, pretty
epic. That might've just been a playoff thing. But the one thing I
always remember, and it's still really funny, is Boston vs.
Vancouver Stanley Cup Final, we were covering the game in
Boston and we walk into the press room, and it is what you would
expect from a team in Massachusetts – it's a giant spread of
lobsters, fully boiled lobsters. I remember people being astounded
by this; you had to pay for it, I think.

“People were taking pictures of these things and posting them on
the Internet, and then all of a a sudden people (realized) 'You're
getting bribed!' (Bruins owner) Jeremy Jacobs is clearly bribing
you people to favorably cover their team. I think it might have
been the Vancouver fans that were most pissed off about it. It was
one of the most epic and surprising things I've ever seen as far as
food stuff goes.”

Greg's Social Media All-Star to Follow
“Anybody in the hockey analytics community. I would put up
@ChartingHockey, @MannyYelk...these are folks that do
incredible work to expand people's knowledge about the game
and help us understand the game. The fact that the analytics
community still gets flagged on because maybe some things don't
add up and it's not predictive is still mind-boggling to me.
Because I think the analytics that are available to us allow us to
tell such a fuller, better story about the games that we cover.”

Where to find Greg and his work on social/digital media
Greg's work is on ESPN.com, on Twitter @wyshynski
Listen to his podcasts ESPN On Ice, with co-host Emily Kaplan
(every Tuesday), Puck Soup, with co-host Dave Lozo comes out
every Friday

Thanks again to Greg for being so generous with his time to share
his knowledge, experience, and expertise with me!
For more content and episodes, subscribe to the podcast, follow
me on LinkedIn and on Twitter @njh287, and visit
www.dsmsports.net

Episode 133 Snippets: Greg Wyshynski of ESPN

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Episode 133 Snippets: Greg Wyshynski of ESPN