Getting Paid by the Comment (Marc Stein Edition)

I'm guessing that Marc Stein gets a little bonus based on the number of comments generated from his posts.

How else can you explain elevating the Boston Celtics over the Los Angeles Lakers in this week's Power Rankings over at ESPN.com?

Laker fans and Laker haters are fighting it out in the comments, and by the end of the day I predict at least 1000 comments to turn up on this one. It's a good strategy, comments drive traffic, and they drive multiple visits over a day and a week as people make a comment, then obsess over responses to their comments, then respond to the responses to their comments, and so on.

More eyeballs to see their ads, so the big winner is the US Army who sponsor ESPN's NBA Power Rankings, so do your patriotic duty, and comment away.

(for the record, I understand his reasoning, even if I don't agree with it, and I suspect some east coast bias is at work, given that I doubt he's seen how the Lakers have accomplished their whopping 22.4 ppg win margin in their first five games, and he's probably just assuming it was done against weaker competition)