Yeah, Meek doesnt do it for me at all. I actually like Meek’s MSU equivalent–Colton Pouncy–more. Staying subscribed to support BQ and Nick Baumgardner, but going to be tough to renew after this year if BQ’s stuff is just too niche for me to read regularly.
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Pouncey is infinitely better than Meek. I’ve been patiently waiting for them to replace Meek with someone who has decent writing skills and some knowledge of Michigan football. Instead they are expanding his portfolio. Doesn’t make much sense.
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Feels a little like when U-M’s players move on the NBA. I truly do wish them all the best, but I have no interest in the NBA. I mean, I like to hear if they’re doing well but I don’t watch any games.
(sniff) Feels all too similar with BQ in the sports journalism world.
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It’s interesting that BQ took the leap now, I know in the past he’s said he’s turned down national writing opportunities because he thought it’d be less interesting.
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Cody Stavenhagen is really good. He was on the beat for a year before he went to cover the Tigers. UM and the Tigers are my sports passions, so I still read Cody, but too bad they couldn’t replace him with someone of equal talent.
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My six months for $1/month trial expired and as I was cancelling they offered me a year for $21.95, so I figured what the heck for under $2/month. Maybe you can get a similar deal.
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At that price I’d go for it, though, generally, not hugely enthused. The pattern is increasingly to ask writers to cover too much, and I think it shows in the level of detail they collect/retain. BQ at MLive knew much more about the program than since then, surely because they weren’t asking him to cover another team plus golf.
The funny part is that if you read articles from around its inception, the co-owners were making its founding a huge moral crusade against the abusive local newspapers spreading their writers too thin. Not saying the Athletic is to that point yet, but it’s certainly gotten closer based on staff decreases.
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“We’re gonna make money from this thing that isn’t profitable on a large scale.”
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If you’re a subscription service I would think you would make more money off the local rather than national coverage. National stories are easy to find and read for free. Quality local reporting is worth paying for.
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I agree, but the consumer has to decide if they’re going to pay for a subscription for the Free Press, News, Athletic, etc. How many are worth subscribing to? How much content? What price?
I like the athletic because I can read about a lot of sports and teams that I like…even if none of them alone may be enough to justify it. I’m struggling with whether I want to subscribe to Ace’s new Bucket Problem site. I like his writing most of the time, I like his basketball thoughts, etc…but he only puts out a couple of things per week. For a similar price I get this message board and the countless posts that Dylan makes on a regular basis.
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I paid for a year of The Atlantic based on what I thought I was getting from the MLive-period BQ, and reupped for another year because it was cheap, but I’m just not into the big human-interest features and BQ was spread too thin already covering Michigan and Sparty. I guess I wouldn’t mind access to the odd Pistons piece, or Vecenie. For a while this was the only site I paid for that I couldn’t expense for work, but I’m happy to support Ace. He’s thoughtful and watches very closely and is not spread too thin. Also, he’s a person. He’s not gonna lay himself off or send himself to cover so many other things that his Michigan coverage will suffer.
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If only my message board posts were valuable content 
I do think that we at least try to really provide exhaustive coverage of Michigan hoops from multiple angles.
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Wow, I haven’t seen one BQ piece yet In The Atlantic
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Well, yeah. In retrospect, my expectations weren’t particularly reasonable there. I have learned from the mistake and grown as a media consumer.
(LOL oops)
FWIW, I’m under the impression that Brendan is still going to write plenty about Michigan and Michigan State. I’m guessing he won’t write off of a random buy game on a Tuesday night but he lives in SE Michigan, he’ll be on campus at both places quite a bit.
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Ace?
Adding more to get to ten.
Ace Anbender, formerly of mgoblog.
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