Kings Hire Beat Writer Hammond

The Kings on Wednesday hired Kings Daily News beat writer Rich Hammond for the same role with the team's official website. Hammond spent the last 10 years with the newspaper covering the Kings in numerous aspects, including the "Inside the Kings" blog, which consistently ranked as the top pro sports blog on the paper's website.

Hammond had this to say on his Daily News Kings blog just after the announcement was made.

In reaction to this, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had this to say about the move.

At first, I wasn't sure why Cuban had not only responded to this kind of news, but why he responded the way he did. But after thinking about his background, and all of his endeavors as a businessman, it dawned on me that this sort of hiring is right up his alley.

A quick background: Cuban completely revolutionized television viewing and the industry as we see it today. He launched the first-ever high-definition channel for DirecTV in 2001. His HDNet now includes several different high-definition networks, and today, nearly every major network and cable network broadcasts in digital high-definition.

Cuban is also an avid and active investor in leading and cutting-edge technology. He uses his blog as a forum to share his thoughts and ideas on topics such as politics, entrepreneurship, as well as technology.

So how does this all tie in to the Kings hiring Hammond? Well, the newspaper as we know it is a dying breed. We've already seen the Daily News alone lose two of its top beat writers in Hammond, and former Dodger beat writer, Tony Jackson, because of the sign of the times. While the internet is now the number one source for the general public to get its daily news, papers such as the Daily News are starting to struggle to hang on to its precious insiders because of cost-cutting, including those like Hammond, who use their blogs as an avenue to give us information as they see and hear it without having to have their thoughts regulated by the powers that may be.

So the Kings hiring of Hammond to do just that makes perfect sense. Hammond will be able to provide the fans inside information directly from the team. And in the future, we'll probably see many more teams begin to hire beat writers like Hammond, not just in the NHL, but in all of the major sports.