Joe Yanarella, a fellow 1985 Fordham University graduate, has had a 25+ year career in publishing, including stints as a sportswriter at two daily newspapers and management stops at two different print publishers. He joined Bleacher Report in 2009 as its first Editor-in-Chief, a title he still holds today as B/R has grown from start-up to the second largest sports website in the U.S. behind ESPN. Below is a piece we did with Joe this past week for Fordham sports.com .He has some great insights into the business in general.
You were the sports editor of The Paper when you were in school, what were some of your fondest memories from an editor’s perspective while at Rose Hill?
Ironically enough, I wasn’t the sports editor of The Paper but rather just a sports writer. I contributed articles but never jumped in with both feet and that was probably one of my biggest regrets and I faced some uphill challenges at the start of my career because some of my classmates and the rest of the journalist grads were ahead of me. I did intern with Stan Fischler, the Hockey Maven who also served as our Basic Reporting/Advanced Reporting professor and got to perform research for him for a book project and weekly column. My fondest memories were about the internship in which Stan would make small talk with beat writers from the US and Canada and hand the phone to me and I’d be taking notes for him on hockey trades and rumors for consideration for his weekly column for The Hockey News. It was exciting to be on the inside and get these rumors straight from the professional sources. In those days there was more of a wall between the print media and the reader so it was exciting to finally be on the inside. I would say that was the most amazing part of being at Fordham was the network of media types who were alumni or worked closely with the students. I had classmates interning everywhere from the New York Post to radio stations to Sports Phone (real-time scores over the phone before that info was commonplace today).
As a journalist after you left school what were some of your favorite stops before getting to Bleacher Report?
I had the opportunity to work as a sportswriter at two daily newspapers (Newburgh Evening News and Poughkeepsie Journal) before rejoining The Evening News as a city editor and eventually managing editor. I went on to spend nearly 15 years at a family of pop culture monthly magazines, including the flagship, Wizard: The Guide to Comics. I also actively freelanced throughout my career, writing baseball, basketball and football card backs for the Fleer Corporation.
You have been with Bleacher Report almost from the start, how has the platform changed other than the size?
Some of the major changes have involved the talent roster we’ve been able to build throughout the years, adding incredible writers like Mike Freeman (Boston Globe, CBS Sports.com), Howard Beck (New York Times) and Jeff Pearlman and Lars Anderson (both from Sports Illustrated) and ex-NFL players Chris Simms and Jon Vilma on the video side. When the site was first founded, it was as an open-source network to allow anyone who want to to have the privilege to write. Now we have a stringent application process for anyone looking to publish on the site and 98 percent of our traffic is generated by paid writers.
How important has video become in storytelling for media today?
To be as transparent as possible, video is more important from a business standpoint to ensure a digital platform is viable. The majority of advertising that supports websites is similar to the types that support television and those ad spots of choice are 5 to 30-second pre-rolls before a video comes on. So to be successful as a business, a digital platform has to figure out how to have a fully functional video department. I spent the majority of my year in 2014 transitioning to our video group and helping us build Team Stream Now, a mobile-first, video sports news platform and working on our ‘sharable’ video. During this year along, we’ve grown our video streams from a previous high of 8M per month to over 24M. I know that’s not the sexiest information to learn but after working at several newspapers—one of which closed during my tenure—figuring out a sound business strategy along with a content strategy is crucial.
Having said all of that, I’ve enjoyed the ability to tell different types of stories this year via video including this video/text bundle about a former pro wrestler who is now a double amputee that over 1.3M people have consumed to this awesome story about the greatest high school football comeback that never was.
The purchase by Turner was a pivotal moment not just for BR but for sports media publishing in general, what has been the biggest change since the platform became part of the Turner family?
One of the biggest changes was the legitimacy the sale brought us—we were no longer treated as just a sports blog and top writers and editors from around the country start aggressively reaching out to us and inquiring about work opportunities.
Additionally, we became the official sports provider for CNN.com which drives about 25M people a month to our content so we need to improve all of our content standards to ensure we were on the same par as CNN’s. Also, we were now representing a larger organization than just our start up Bleacher Report so were very cognizant of having top notch content that reflected well on the brand, especially in the NBA arena that Turner was so closely aligned with.
And getting the opportunity to hang out with Charles Barkley and Shaq on the set of Inside the NBA isn’t a bad perk.
What lessons did you learn as a student at Fordham that still apply to the work you do today?
I learned several lessons at Fordham. First of all, I saw how hard many talented people were willing to work to break into the industry so I quickly realized that to be successful in this industry, talent wouldn’t be enough and you’d have to be willing to outwork the person next to you and have a commitment to excellence, even if it meant having tough conversations with friends and co-workers. The allegiance always has to be to the product and the consumer, even at the expense of hurting someone’s feelings or damaging relationships.
I also saw the value of networking with people in the industry. Trying to break in as a nameless, faceless is virtually impossible and between the incredible network of Fordham alumni and proximity to the New York City media industry that appreciates the quality of candidates Fordham turns out was something that could be the difference between landing a job and unemployment. The majority of people working in the industry had the benefit of mentors and people who helped them along in their careers and are equally willing to help the next generation of sports media employees.
What media outlets do you follow regularly to stay engaged and ahead in your daily job?
The sports landscape has changed so much that I now no longer visit websites or outlets. People now rely on their various social networks for content whether that’s Twitter or Facebook and it’s also why it’s so important that to be viable in the digital space, a company has to invest in a social team, both to create original content and to distribute content. I did recently get introduced to a very interesting daily newsletter by Jason Hirschhorn that highlights the best from around the web, touching on topics ranging from tech to pop culture to sports.
What are the changes even now with media engagement that you are keeping your eye on?
I would say distribution is one of the things I pay attention to more than anything these days. The days of having a captive audience that buys your newspaper or magazine every day are long gone. Nowadays, if Google makes a change to its algorithm or Facebook changes the way it sources content or news, it can have a tremendous impact on content publishers.
I also pay attention to any news apps that occupy the attention of young people. Since 70-80 percent of our traffic now comes from mobile devices, we’re in competition with the time people spend on apps, whether that’s the Bleacher Report Team Stream app that has over 10M downloads or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat or Pinterest or Yik Yak. If people are gathering on an app, there’s an opportunity to get content in front of them.
For young people looking to get into the business, what advice do you give them?
I would encourage them to specialize. When I first joined B/R 6 years ago, the most frequent question I received from young writers was: When will I get media credentials? And I would say, I don’t want you to have them. Because if you have media credentials, you’re following the same pack of paid media, getting the same sound bites and not executing it as well. I encouraged them to sit home and watch the game as fans and just use the game as a starting point of conversation. Don’t focus on what you just saw and what everyone else already knows since they’ve got real-time information devices. Tell them what it means. Tell them what could happen next. That became our value proposition, that we were different than the rest of the media. That we focused on opinion and analysis as opposed to news and information. And it provided to be a successful strategy.
The other reality is that most 22-year-olds don’t have as much talent or polish as an industry veteran who’s been on the job for 10-20 years. So trying to outcompete them in the same space isn’t likely. Find the gaps in the market and own them. Make yourself a desired entity. Whether that prospects coverage in NFL, NBA or other sports, whether that’s advanced metrics like NBA stathead info that’s emerged in recent years or it’s focusing on telling stories about athletes people don’t know about yet. Find a niche and own it.
