How the Civil War is like Sports Blogging: Top 10 Ways Blogfrica Will Change The World

Surprise! It's not just a hacky list. Instead, you've got a big and over educated set-up for it. Let's wade into it, shall we?

I was reading a book review of the lasting impact of the US Civil War. It was the first time in large-scale warfare where soldiers were able to correspond more or less routinely with the families they left behind, and it was also the first time that railroads were able to return the remains in a way that was, more or less, available to common soldiers.

So what you had, instead of in previous conflicts, was an immense amount of concern and treatment of the war dead. Instead of simply never seeing your man again, either through an anonymous death or the soldier simply choosing to never return for other reasons (i.e., desertion), the home front had a good idea as to when something had gone wrong, and could do something to achieve closure.

It wound up creating, more or less, the American funeral industry.

Now, I don't want to get too hung up on the history lesson, not the least of which is because I'm summarizing a summary, and don't want to get into a comment conversation about history events. This is a sports blog.

But what interests me is the unintended side effect. No one thought that when soldiers wrote letters home, that it would wind up creating an entirely new way of life.

Just as, I suspect, no one will realize the following from an increasing amount of people writing about sports, and an even larger amount of people reading and communicating to each other about their work.

10. Nerd stats will hit the mainstream faster. You can see this already in baseball, where OBA gets discussed even by the old-timers, and everybody knows pitch counts now. Next, I think you'll get actual defensive numbers that mean something.

9. Athletes become paparazzi targets (aka, the Deadspin effect). Does it matter that Matt Leinart likes to drink with college students? Probably not. Does it matter that Leinart doesn't care enough about his job to properly rehab an injury, or get better in the off-season? Yes, and choosing to drink with co-eds tells you more about that than anything else.

8. Coverage balkanization. There's no reason why you, as a sports fan, should have to put up with weak local coverage from a dying medium -- i.e., print media -- when other providers might be able to give you what you want. Because while a good reporter is huge, the simple fact is that a mediocre or poor one, who just transcribes cliches in the locker room, isn't worth much.

7. Young fans will still exist. Let's face it -- with ticket prices where they are and an increasing amount of people opting out of recreational sports due to the over-coaching and specialization for youth players -- there's a lot of good reasons why the sports fan audience should get mighty gray. There's two factors that counter this, and sports blogging is a big one.

6. Fantasy becomes mainstream. Bloggers write about their teams. Fantasy owners want advice and news to win their leagues. It's a perfect circle of use and creation, and shows no sign of abating.

5. Gambling is encouraged. What I just wrote about fantasy sports is, of course, absolutely true about more traditional forms of gambling. And given how tight our economy is getting, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets more legal and prevalent. We just don't have the margin to let this revenue go untaxed, folks.

4. Sports radio will be changed forever by blogger podcasting. There's no reason to suffer through the same old product if you'd rather listen to something that might actually tell you something you didn't know. And it can't come fast enough, really: sports radio is, for the most part, downright embarrassing.

3. Sports fans will get on each other's nerves more than ever before. Without sports blogging, I would never have been exposed to quite so many Patriot fans during their run last year. (Trust me, Patriot Fan, this wasn't a good thing for you.) But what this really means is that the speed in which a likable up and coming team turns into hated and stale will accelerate. Hearing from the worst of a team's fan base just speeds the process.

2. Video production will no longer be a broadcast only experience. In my lifetime, audio production has gone from something that cost an ungodly amount of money into something that just about anyone can do in their living room. The same thing, of course, is happening to video production, and when it does, you'll have some highly motivated lawyers from the major sports leagues and networks. That's because...

1. Piracy. Take, for instance, the continued NFLN issues, where people just can't get access to games. Or the cost of Sunday Ticket on satellite, or the folks that can't get a dish and want it. Now, take the rampant theft of intellectual content -- camcorders in movie theaters, digital content file sharing.

So... is it really so hard to believe that something similar won't happen to sports, in a recession, with all of the technology necessary to make it happen already freely available? Especially if high site traffic, independent sites point people to it?