? @D1ticker
Sub-story: 10 years from now we’ll still be remarking how @DigSportsDesk beat a laundry list of high-profile media outlets to break the UConn-Big East news.
12:37 PM – 22 Jun 2019
We always love stories of hustle, especially when it involves colleagues, and Terry Lyons falls into those categories.
For several years Terry, longtime NBA PR executive now living in Boston running his own consulting practice, has worked to build up little Digital Sports Desk as a source for news, commentary and best practices. It is not Terry’s sole focus, but it gets nice traffic, and a growing social following, and does ying on news when many yang.
Oh and Terry, a married father of two, does what many in the digital news business doesn’t do; he shows up. Sports conferences, The Beanpot, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics, he is there covering, listening and storytelling. It’s a fun and accurate bit of a side hustle, and pays dividends away from the beat as well; you never know what you will hear or who you will meet.
Case in point; last week at the NBA Draft . Digital Sports Desk made the trek down from Boston and was on site from early on, tweeting and sharing the goings on with all the others looking for stories. As a longtime hoops guy, Terry knows the space, the people, and most importantly, can find a good story.
And did he find one, only it wasn’t directly associated with the NBA.
Now there have been rumblings around the basketball world for a while that the University of Connecticut was going to part ways with The American Athletic Conference and make its way back to The Big East, but for the most part, it sounded like positioning. UCONN was trying to rebuild its football program again, and The American was a logical fit. Maybe not for hoops, which had struggled recently on the men’s side, while Geno Auriemma’s women’s team continues to be among the elite. Digital Sports Desk however saw and heard things differently. Could UCONN buck a trend and forgo football in a “Big Six” conference to connect back with a core group of basketball-first schools that fit both the tradition and the culture of those in Storrs?
First it was mentioned once; then it came up again; when a few calls to insiders Thursday and early Friday produced credible evidence, Lyons and DSD had a story, but was it good enough to go?
Should he take the high road and light a little bit of a match, tweeting out a “rumor” and let the bigger news sources bite? Or should he make it into a news story that he knew he had (and others heard) and set the house on fire? As luck would have it following the Draft, Lyons and DSD were heading north, but not home to Boston, he was showing up and spending time at the PGA event, The Travellers…just outside of Hartford, Connecticut.
And that’s where, armed with solid sources, Digital Sports Desk, on a Friday night, scooped the hoops world.
The story generated some interest late Friday, and then took off Saturday. The irony is that many in the media who did not know who Lyons was or what his background was, at first tried to push it off. Then as calls were made it became clear that a scoop was what DSD had. A larger organization or two tried not to attribute the story to DSD, one even saying that had “heard” the news earlier in the week, but didn’t report it. Yet when all broke pretty clearly, they claimed to have it first (eventhough they didn’t report it and they were beaten to it). Aside from that pettiness, news outlets as prominent as ESPN, Yahoo and AP and others attributed little Digital Sports Desk with breaking the story accurately and fairly, and traffic and a little bit of buzz was had by the site and its author/editor.
Now of course every credible news outlet will have its take on the story going forward, and DSD will go back to covering and hustling its stories the way it can. After all, it’s a passion play more than a large scale focus for the St. John’s grad. However there is a big lesson to be learned by many now in the media or looking to grow brand and focus.
First, the value of showing up can never be devalued. You never know what you hear or who you meet.
Second, relationships are everything. This story came about because of the trust and value people placed in Lyons, and he delivered on all fronts.
Third, it’s not always the big dogs who bark the loudest that win out. Sometimes relationships and showing up lead you to places you never thought you would be.
Fourth, accuracy, even in a world of getting things first, is important. The use of “BREAKING” as an attention getter, even by PR types, is wayyyy overplayed and sometimes is less than accurate. Lyons and DSD took the time to be 100 percent accurate at the expense of time. That can be a dangerous game to play for large news sites, but for a niche platform, getting it right is key, and for sure the site got it right.
Fifth. If the fire is burning seize the moment, it doesn’t happen all the time. Lyons knows the other side of the business; he spent a career pushing news out in a strategic way, it is rare he is on the other side of big news. The past few days are an example of selective restraint. We heard from several people how he took a quieter approach around the PGA event, not wanting to usurp the privilege that a credential brings at the expense of exposure. He picked his spot, used the social space, and respectfully answered questions and met other media types as people asked. It was not a sideshow, he let the show play on.
The coming weeks will see how far DSD chooses to rise in the breaking news story business. It’s not really the role of the site or Lyons vision. It is much more to do some old fashioned storytelling, and that it does well. However for at least one period of time a little Boston based site scooped the world, because of hustle, timing and relationships.
That is a story in itself, and a best practice for all, big or small.
Well done TL, we knew you when.
