Woj Bomb: Woj is retiring to become the GM of St. Bonaventure MBB
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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I think this is so cool. Woj is trading down in terms of glamor and (I'm assuming) paycheck, to make a life choice which I thoroughly respect. I think being an administrator at a "nice little" D1 college athletics program, with a little but not too much pressure, and returning to your (and your wife's) alma mater sounds like a pretty great way to spend your life.
Can't be said enough of how good the feeling is when Bristol is in your rearview mirror. Good luck Woj.
Couldn't agree more. It honestly saddens me that this isn't more common. Good on Woj.
This is the best Woj Bomb ever.
My son has had the good fortune to be mentored a bit by Woj, and he is one of the kindest, warmest souls you're likely to find in any industry, never mind the sports industrial complex.
Godspeed, Woj -- what an awesome next chapter.
My son has had the good fortune to be mentored a bit by Woj, and he is one of the kindest, warmest souls you're likely to find in any industry, never mind the sports industrial complex.
Godspeed, Woj -- what an awesome next chapter.
Very very cool that it’s the alma mater
would be less cool if it wasn’t (but still a good lifestyle choice)
would be less cool if it wasn’t (but still a good lifestyle choice)
Plus, he sent an amazing email one time that made me laugh my ass off. Dude seems to be a very decent person.
Yes it's becoming prevalent now. A GM is a higher level administrator role who handles NIL, recruiting, fundraising for the program, big picture items, etc while the classic director of operations now is doing the day to day scheduling, travel logistics, liason to the other support staff areas, etc.
Counterpoint: Is having a scoopster like Shams or Woj really that important for a news outlet?
The value of someone like a Woj or a Shams is that they break information FIRST, and they have enough of a track record that fans view them as reliable sources of information. However, I'm kind of dubious of the monetary value that comes with being that person. The data exists for social media (primarily Twitter and Facebook) and it's not really clear how much of a revenue driver that is for a media company. It's great if your goal is to have a lot of Twitter followers, but not a lot of reliable data is out there that suggests that is ultimately leading to extra revenue.
Woj/Shams job is to have strong, favorable relationships with players, agents and front offices. To maintain that, they have to essentially only create content that is extremely basic, just stating the pure facts of a transaction with little additional context outside of the some fluffing of a player that just signed a new deal. They exist almost solely on the limited revenue driver of social media, I know ESPN has tried to trot out Woj on TV, but does anyone really care about seeing Woj on TV? They are massive names in sports media, but I'm skeptical they are ultimately that beneficial to their employers, outside of the ego of a place like ESPN getting to say that they have one of the top newsbreakers in all of sports.
There is a major difference between the value someone like Shams (lots of likes and retweets!) and someone like Zach Lowe, Brian Windhorst, etc. who are writing long, in-depth pieces full of context and nuance about the NBA, which can drive revenue to your actual product.
Personally, as a journalist, I find what Woj and Shams do as bottom-feeding bullshit PR masquerading as "journalism", so maybe that is coloring my opinion on their value.
Great for Woj. Worth noting that the recently retired, longtime head of PR for ESPN is also a St. Bonnie alum. And he's very involved with the university. I wonder if he brokered something on behalf of Woj with the school.
I am curious as well. It's purely academic for me, as I neither have any social media doings nor do I watch more than 5 minutes a month of non-actual-sports on ESPN, so the contributions of the scoopsters are irrelevant to me. I'm pretty sure I would have found out about "it" soon enough.
The only thing that helped me keep my sanity when visiting my wife's parents in north Jersey was reading Woj in The Record.
Same here. Old days, I'd walk into the Case Center, ask Barbara, the MBB admin asst, if Coach had a minute or two, and chat with Pitino or go out for Chinese with Kue.
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I would like to know if you happened to? It’s not what I expected. Although in hindsight, Mrs. sezwho worked for ESPN (and NESN) and I think there may be some extra perceived value of the brand that they don’t have to compensate for.
Clearly, I’m perhaps naïve, but I feel like he kind of elevated the game a bit. He has the relationship of the brand to lean into, but it’s like he was an institution more than scooper.
Note that I definitely get that he’s essentially only a scooper, it just seemed a little less backstab and a little more establishment if that makes any sense when he does it.
Depends on the situation. Woj may report to the AD or the head of advancement since his role is going to be more of a fundraising effort. Baker Dunleavy at Villanova reports to Kyle Neptune because he's doing more basketball duties outside of the fundraising part. I wonder even if Woj will be moving to Olean. A lot of the stuff he's going to do can probably be done remotely and he can just go to campus when needed.
Incredibly well done. I admire anyone who leaves a lucrative but stressful job for a better quality of life. Good for him.
A reporter becoming an AD at a random college. Why is this a news story?
Hmmm…maybe because, in the spirit of LJ’s creation, there are a lot of diehard Celtics fans on the site who follow basically, every transaction made in the league. And the guy who breaks about 50% of the stories is riding off into the sunset. Add to that, that he’s a New Englander from a sports town and maybe C’s fan SoSH’ers can be forgiven for giving a shit about some random Polack. Yep, there’s some Karlinski in me.
Mainly because he’s the most important and influential sports reporter of the 21st century and completely redefined the way news is disseminated to and consumed by the general public.
I don’t know. Why does anyone care that a baseball player who never got the chance to bat became a doctor?
He's the most followed NBA reporter on the planet going by Twitter followers, and that's even if we count Simmons and SAS as reporters. This is the media forum, if we're not going to talk about the biggest name in the NBA retiring, what is the point of all of this?