The search to make a few bucks in hyperlocal online journalism has turned out fruitless for most would-be contenders.

When it comes to sports coverage, though, seizing control of the message across all possible platforms has been paying huge dividends — one market at a time.

A recent feature from The New York Times highlighted just how much money is being made from media rights, to the point where they are now worth more than the teams.

The squad formerly known as the Expos, in fact, may have never gotten official assent to leave Montreal to become the Washington Nationals if not for the creation of a regional network that allowed the neighbouring Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos to reap the majority of the TV-related rewards.

When it came to the acquisition of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2000, the late Ted Rogers was motivated by the emerging realization that sporting events were predicted to be the last type of long-form programming that was always watched live, rather than on-demand. The regional Rogers Sportsnet channels have prospered ever since.

Launching a mass-circulation Canadian print magazine in 2011 seems illogical on the surface, yet Rogers Media is confident of the popular demand for a Sportsnet bi-weekly, at the evident expense of improving its current web content. But how much journalistic integrity can there be when the company is also trying to own every major league team in Toronto?

And, if it's not Rogers snapping up Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, then the rivals at Bell Media will be taking a similarly aggressive cross-platform approach.

The common thread in all these antics is a cautious corporate conservatism. Not much criticism is going to be tolerated when so much is at stake.

Those Guys Have All the Fun, the new oral history book about ESPN — whose early evolution was funded by Getty Oil before it ultimately became part of The Walt Disney Company — is filled with reminders about how much cashing in on sports broadcast rights has been tied to playing along with the image the leagues want to project. The new challenge is whether control can be exercised over social media, too.

No wonder an experimental ESPN-backed web journalism venture was greeted with much skepticism.

Grantland has set out to cover more than professional sports, and there's probably a good reason for that — it's safer to project irreverence on pop culture topics, where franchise owners won't be trying to shut the snark down.