Last Friday I was listening to The Herd with Colin Cowherd, a show on ESPN Radio, and host Colin Cowherd made a very interesting point about how a tough sports media ultimately benefit the teams they cover, regardless of how harsh or unfair they can be. Many people find Cowherd offensive and seriously dislike him and his in your face style, particularly those in the blogosphere. I guess since Hot Stove Philly is technically considered a sports blog, I should also dislike him, but I don’t. I often times find him incredibly interesting and thought provoking. I don’t always agree with him, but he always makes me think and provides me with an endless stream of interesting sports topics.

One such topic is this idea that cities, or regions, with a tougher sports media benefit those sports teams that receive intense and often times harsh media coverage. One example given by Cowherd included the Los Angeles’ media market’s fiercely lackadaisical approach to all of their sports, with the exception of the Lakers, USC football, and UCLA basketball. Other than that, the LA media largely ignores the other sports in the region aside from your general day to day game reporting. The fans in LA are infamously fairweather when it comes to such trifling matters as the Dodgers or Angels. The media is very intense when it comes to the Lakers, Trojans and Bruins and these programs are constantly trying to improve themselves. The media’s constant focus on the Lakers ensures that they will not become complacent. Embattled star Kobe Bryant created a media spectacle last off-season when he announced that he was demanding a trade and then later that day recanted his demand. As a result, the Lakers made several moves, including bringing all star forward Pau Gasol to the City of Angels, a move that is largely considered to have been the catalyst for their near championship win this year.

Conversely, the Dodgers and Angels largely go unnoticed, and often times appear to be indifferent to their continued mediocrity. Wait you say? The Angels continually win the AL West division year after year, and the Dodgers compete in what has been a tough NL West in recent years? Sure, they compete. But the Dodgers have won only one division title in the past decade and the West has been a very weak division up until the past couple of years. The Angels win their division year after year, but play in what is considered to be one of the weakest divisions in baseball and often times fail to go deep in the playoffs.

The media in the Pacific Northwest, where Cowherd got his start in sports radio, is fairly civil by most standards, and is down right wimpy when compared to that of the New York and Philadelphia markets. How often are the Seattle Mariners or Seahawks in serious contention to win it all? This year was supposed to be the big year for the Mariners. Instead, they have the worst record in baseball. In response, they are most likely going to eat their significant loses and deal ace Erik Bedard by the trade deadline. When was the last time the Pac 10 Conference threatened to win anything?

On the other side of the coin, New York has arguably the toughest sports media in the country, with the possible exception of Philadelphia. The Yankees are under constant fire when they fail to meet expectations that perhaps only God himself could meet. Due to the fact that they are seriously out of playoff contention at this point in the season, expect the Yanks to make a significant push to acquire big name pitchers such as Cleveland Indians’ ace C.C. Sabathia, Bedard, Toronto’s Roy Halladay, or even Roy Oswalt from the Houston Astros. After having the worst collapse in Major League Baseball history last year, the Mets were aggressive in the off-season and stole arguably the best pitcher in the majors, Johan Santana, right out from under the grasp of the Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

Many people criticized the moves made by Flyers’ former GM Bobby Clarke, but one thing you could not say about Clarke is that he was complacent. It was often times impossible to recognize many of the Flyers’ players as Clarke was constantly wheeling and dealing. His successor, Paul Holmgren, has much the same philosophy. The Sixers were a surprise this past season, making the playoffs for the first time in several years. Sixers’ GM Ed Stefanski is expected to be hotly pursuing one or two star players to add to his talented young roster in order for them to seriously contend next year. Despite making the playoffs last year for the first time since their storied run in 1993, the Phillies were expected to win the division again this year and make a serious run for the World Series. Expect GM Pat Gillick to be seriously in the mix with teams like the Yankees and Mets for some of those big named pitchers I mentioned earlier.

My point is this: Teams in New York and Philly, while not always successful, are forced to continue to improve their franchises. Complacency is a foreign concept in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago (White Sox notwithstanding). These teams don’t always win, but their administrations are constantly on the hot seat to do so, and that results in more exciting, interesting, and ultimately better, sports.