My inspiration for today’s post: yet another shot at Buzz Bissinger by the peanut gallery over at Deadspin.

We all knew this was going to crop up again. Deadspin, the unrelenting leader of the sports entertainment blogosphere, has spent way too much time criticizing Bissinger after the epic Costas Now episode when Bissinger went ballistic on Will Leitch. Basically, their argument is that Bissinger is an old fogie stuck in the Nineties and that he has no idea what blogging is or why it is so funny to write crude, lewd, and rude posts about athletes and bikini babes. I’ve posted about this before but I’d like to focus on one particular aspect covered in the latest Deadspin post: taking sports seriously.

Mr. Leitch and Mr. Bissinger offer us opinions from the two polar ends of the journalistic philosophy. Leitch is a proponent of the people’s voice and the idea of,“the American Idol syndrome where everybody is convinced there is a star within them just waiting for the right opportunity” as Bissinger states. Bissinger is a proponent of the traditional media, one that offers credentials and greater opportunities in exchange for hard work and determination. Leitch understands the role of the media but also believes that there is an equal place for those who seek to turn news into entertainment. Bissinger sees the puns and obscenities as a smear on the journalistic profession.

If you’ve read my State of the Sports Blogosphere you’ll know that I’m way, way more apt to accept Bissinger’s point of view than Leitch’s. I value the effort that established journalists have put out in order to earn the amount of access and recognition they now have. Of course, as a blogger, I also have aspirations that some day my work will be viewed as noteworthy and that I too will get some attention. I’ve chosen the established path for my site, the one with the hard work and the years of producing interesting and/or innovative research and writing. I don’t want to stoop to the level of Deadspin or countless other sites that become popular for their obscene content and mindless blathering. I feel that way because I take sports seriously.

Let’s examine two guys: one take sports seriously, the other not so much. The first guy goes to the games, plays the games, takes his kids to the games, knows the stats, knows the players, knows the history, and appreciates the contributions that the games make to society. The second guy goes to games because of the beer, laughs and yells and has a good time, gets wasted and has more fun on the subway ride home from the stadium than he did at the game. The first guy goes home and writes about how the players have toiled for years to attain perfection, how the coaches stay up all night trying to find holes in the other team, how history is changed with every pitch or catch. The second guy goes home and writes about all the boobs he saw at the stadium and how a fight broke out in section D.

Who’s taking sports seriously?

Sports weren’t made for the purpose of entertaining fans. Sports exist because of human beings’ innate desire to compete and perfect their craft. Sports aren’t here for advertisers to make money or for fans to get drunk. Sports are here because it’s man against man, woman against woman, team against team. Sports are for the athletes, not the fans, and if you don’t agree with that then you need to think a little harder.