Good, bad and indifferent

There's an interesting conversation about modern sports coverage taking place today on nbcsports.msnbc.com.

With the proliferation of 24-hour cable networks, blogs and other online outlets, coverage of today's athletes - at all levels - really has changed. And not necessarily for better or worse. It's just different.

I rarely read deadspin.com or thebiglead.com but, somehow, most of the conversations I have about sports and athletes with my friends and colleagues center on the sort of items you might find on those blogs. For instance, I know a lot more about Travis Henry's issues with condoms than I do about his prospects for a return to the NFL .

I don't know that I'm smarter about sports despite all these new avenues to information. But I seem to know a lot more about the guys who play them. Meaningless sports tidbits tend to overwhelm my inbox these days: Many of them focusing on the drinking exploits of some major-college quarterback (of questionable relevance) or pictures of Erin Andrews (certainly a bonus).

To me, there's really no answer to the issue of whether this is a bad thing or a good thing - athletes and traditional sports reporters lean toward the former, bloggers and online producers trend toward the latter. Mostly, I'm just sort of relieved that my days as a sportswriter appear to be over.