Media & Second Stories: An Update

Two days ago I wrote a piece called Winning Isn’t Everything: Why I believe every professional athlete needs a second story. (If you haven’t read it already, perhaps do so as this is meant to be a kind of addendum to that). After publishing, it was voiced that I didn’t include media platforms. This was intended, but it’s become clear I need to address why. It’s very important to me to equip individuals with the tools and know-how to do the kind of marketing and “brand” strategy usually only accessible to big institutions and the extremely wealthy. Most professional athletes I know are neither. This article was for them.

My reasons for omitting media are thus:

1. I don’t think any media platforms are 100% perfect examples of platforms dedicated to sharing second stories. Some media platforms seem hell-bent on simply driving traffic, regardless of the story. However, there are one or two that are much better examples than others. There are three I know of, that get the closest: though niche within cycling for those interested in professional cycling, The Peloton Brief is dedicated to giving professional riders their own voice in cycling media. I have always been a fan and supporter of what they are creating. I think this kind of athlete-focused storytelling is an interesting and important future of sport media. They offer athletes a unique access to fans because it is a collective journal and offer fans unique access to behind the scenes of professional cycling. The secondbest-practice example is Backstage Pass, produced by @ozdanjones, giving behind the scenes access to riders at Orica BikeExchange. Third, possibly the most persuasive and sport-wide, The Players Tribune while heavily funded and backed by some pretty hefty names, is an astonishingly good example of giving athletes a chance to shine through their own voices. But athletes telling stories is not necessarily the same as tapping into a second story.
2. I don’t know enough sport-media platforms outside of professional cycling to make a case with broad enough application. It’s easier to draw parallels between individual athletes because everyone is human (which is what I’ve tried to do), but media platforms do vary from sport to sport as every sport has it’s own unique fandom culture.
3. I believe traditional journalism, with good, in-depth interviews can still sometimes be the best way to share a second story, as long as an athlete has one to share. A second story, in my opinion, is something embodied in a human that can be expressed in any number of ways, but ultimately self-awareness and willingness to share not something all athletes have. Hence why I wrote the piece in the first place: to help people feel more in control of their own story and confident in sharing it. Media are exactly that, a medium, for communications. Media are not the locus or origin of a story. If a person doesn’t have a story to share in the first place, no type of new media or amount of good journalism will change that. There are many extremely good examples of journalists sharing athletes’ second stories, but it doesn’t help athletes to find and hone their stories to begin with; and that was the purpose of my article.
4. I did not want my article to be critical or negative. I know and deeply respect how hard new media platforms, podcasters, video-makers and journalists work to create something. They’re putting themselves out there to do something unique and creative, and honestly, who am I to critique what they do? I’m not “in the arena with them” so to speak. I felt if I was going to address media, it would have felt necessary to point out it’s not perfect, because it’s not, but being creative is never easy and they don’t need me telling them their work is imperfect.
5. The idea of “what is sport media” is evolving rapidly, and I don’t think I could do it justice. Podcasts, YouTubers, Periscope, Snapchat: the long tail of media is long indeed. There will always be an exception to every rule, and I’ve learned a long time ago that generalising on the internet can get people into trouble, especially in a rapidly evolving space.
6. This blog is my space to try out ideas, to practice writing and hopefully help a few people in the process. I publish drafts here, and want this to be an open and evolving platform for myself. I don’t claim to get it right, but I also believe this is why blogging is important: it’s the start of a conversation, not a definitive answer. Maybe I should have included media as a part of the discussion and that might have been a mistake, but it would have turned a 10 minute read into a much longer article, and I didn’t think it was necessary at the time.

Chad Haga, used with permission from The Peloton Brief

I do not want to dissuade athletes from working with media. Just because athletes know and have a story to tell, doesn’t mean they’ll have a wide enough audience or media on which to share it. This is why it’s extremely important for media, teams and sponsor brands to do everything they can to promote athlete’s unique, authentic stories.

What other examples have you found that are great at sharing athlete’s authentic second stories?