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Janesville, Beloit part of ESPN series

Janesville and Beloit will be the focus of an ESPN report Sunday.

Unfortunately, it won’t be about an athletic achievement.

Three one-minute pieces covering the effects of the recession—and the closing of the Janesville General Motors plant—will cap a weeklong series on “Outside The Lines.”

The series began Monday on the show, which airs weekdays from 2 to 3 p.m.

Sunday’s segment about Janesville and Beloit will air at 8 a.m. and again on the 11 a.m. segment of ESPNEWS.

OTL reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada and producer Arty Berko spent five days in the area earlier this month.

Fainaru-Wada—a Northwestern University graduate who broke the BALCO steroid story in 2003 while with the San Francisco Chronicle—says he came away with a better sense of what the country is going through.

“The obvious thing is the unemployment is staggering,” Fainaru-Wada said. “Until you go and see it—and obviously you live there—it’s hard to get a real understanding on how dramatic an impact it has on people on the ground level.

“One of the most staggering things is the number of businesses impacted,” Fainaru-Wada said. “And that’s beyond those such as Lear and LSI and those others connected to GM. Just regular businesses such as child care and supermarkets. You don’t realize the trickle-down effect.”

Fainaru-Wada and Berko did three pieces. One is on the Beloit Snappers, another on Beloit youth baseball and another on the efforts to raise money for the Janesville youth baseball complex.

“I was really struck by the resilience and determination of people, particularly those in youth sports, to keep their kids playing,” said Fainaru-Wada. “Folks that have lost their jobs and are struggling.”

The Beloit youth baseball piece features Gary and Michelle Hill, who have three school-age boys who enjoy sports. Gary lost his job as an air conditioning technician about a year ago. His company’s top client was GM.

Michelle works as the finance director of Girls Scouts of Wisconsin Badgerland Council.

With league costs and traveling fees, the Hills spent between $1,500 and $2,000 a year on baseball for their boys.

The Hills say they use baseball as a carrot for their children, such as bad grades, no baseball.

Michelle told Fainaru-Wada: “These are experiences that they are only going to be experiencing once, and I want to be able to provide that for them. So if I have to put up a pop-up tent in the back yard here and become homeless, then that’s what I am going to do.”

The Snappers might be one entity that won’t see a dramatic change due to the recession.

“Minor-league baseball is an affordable outlet when people find disposable income diminishing,” Fainaru-Wada said. “Minor-league baseball seems to be thriving. Snapper attendance is even up a bit.”

What is hurting the Snappers is the reduction in sponsors. Businesses able to pay for signs and other advertising are down.

“One of the things we found interesting was the ownership structure there,” Fainaru-Wada said. “The team is owned by the whole town.

“That’s a cool thing in many ways and could help keep them going,” Fainaru-Wada said. “They’re not under the pressures that perhaps they would be if it was owned by an individual.”

The OTL piece on the funding for the youth baseball complex centers on the loss of UAW Local 95 donations.

Fainaru-Wada talked with Andy Richardson, the president of the Local 95. Richardson said in 2007, UAW Local 95 gave $9,104 to area youth teams. Last year, it was $7,855.

This year?

“Nothing,” Richardson told Fainaru-Wada.

But the bottom line is that people here are finding ways to overcome the 14.7 percent unemployment rate in Janesville, and 17.4 percent rate in Beloit.

That is one of the reasons the local piece will cap off a week-long series that includes looking at professional players’ salaries, downsizing of pro teams, the effects on college athletic programs and new ways teams and leagues are using to produce revenue streams.

This is grass root.

“We think it will be the most uplifting to viewers,” Fainaru-Wada said.