Mediaite Launches: The Sports Rankings

Peter King: The 7th most influential columnist in print or online -- sports or otherwise? Bill Simmons: No. 21? Jason Whitlock ranked behind Will Leitch? Jason won't like that at all...

The new media-industry news-and-analysis site Mediaite launched yesterday, and by far its most buzz-worthy (and brilliant) feature is the "Power Grid," which ranks hundreds of people in media, based on category.

The rankings are algorithmically derived, based on things like audience size, Google Buzz, Twitter followers and more. For navel-gazey media types, this is basically like crack.

Of course, the first thing I looked for in the Power Grid was the sports-media folks on the list. (No, that's not true. The very first thing I did, of course, was look for my own name. Not there. D'oh!)

In the Top 100 of the grid for "Print/Online Columnists," here are your top-ranked names:

7. Peter King
"Coffeenerdness" was part of algorithm?
21. Bill Simmons
"Dunleavy Treatment" for 20 ahead of him?
35. Jon Heyman
43. Will Leitch
56. Rick Reilly
That's $60,000 per slot.
63. Joel Sherman
67. Selena Roberts
Bright side of 3 months of negative publicity!
74. Michael Wilbon
79. Jason Whitlock
Still hates Will Leitch. But ahead of Lupica!
87. Bob Ryan
92. Gary Smith
Columnist? Not quite.
93. Mike Lupica
Curses Whitlock. Curses them all!
98. Frank Deford
If "Print/Online" means "Radio/Pay Cable"
105. John Feinstein
110. Bill Plaschke
Renounces this list because it is based on an algorithm.
122. JA Adande
132. Sally Jenkins
142. Woody Paige
Oh, come on: List him under "TV Pundit!"
153. Mike Vaccaro
155. Mike Downey
156. Bill Madden
159. John Buccigross
Who says hockey doesn't sell?
162. "Mike" Wilbon
So big he's listed TWICE.
168. Ray Ratto
177. Patrick Hruby
Rare appearance for online-only writer.
180. Jackie MacMullen
185. William Rhoden

There were a handful of sports-media folks categorized under "Print/Online Reporter," although some of these folks are clearly columnists:

45. Dashiell Bennett
60. Dan Shaughnessy
Really?
107. Drew Magary
118. Tommy Craggs
One more data point he's killing it at Deadspin.
131. Ron Borges
133. Roger Angell
Can hear Drew now: "Suck it, Angell!"
161. Tony Massarotti
166. Bill Dwyre
186. Joe Drape

As you can see, the list is VERY heavy on print/"traditional media" folks, although the print folks' online presences are undoubtedly helping in the algorithm.

No, I'm not going to recheck the list every week for sports types -- well, maybe to see if I (finally) crack the list someday.

Otherwise, the rest of you may continue clicking through this page-view-driving engine to see who ranks where.

-- D.S.