At a small paper, should a car show be sports or news?

At a small, non-daily paper, should a summer car show be in the sports section or the news section? I heard a debate about this, with one party saying sports because there isn't a lot of content during the summer and the other saying news, because, well, is a car show really "sports?" What do you all think? I'll actually have this situation at my paper in August.

 

Advertising?

 

Not sports.

 

Unless they're race cars with numbers on the side, it's news.

 

A: "Great. Then we'll take those stories on the police chief resigning and the murder trial. You know, just because sports doesn't have a lot of content for the summer."

What a ridiculous argument. It's a news story. Period. You get around lighter sports times by taking fewer pages, not by filling the section with news stories. It sounds to me like someone in news just doesn't want to cover the car show.
The only way it's sports is if, like someone already said, it's an auto racing car show, or there are sports celebrities there.

 

Arguably is a Business story, but dang sure ain't sports.

 

It best fits in the feature section, if any papers have a features section anymore. If it draws a crowd or if there is a rabid car culture in the community then it has some news value. But cars shows are mainly for people trying to unload shoddy car parts and accessories or sell junkers under the guise of classic fixer-uppers.
Far from sports. Nobody would race those things and nobody would watch people race those things.

 

I sometimes wish this site were like Reddit, where I could upvote comments like this one.

 

Most definitely.

Not to threadjack (but I guess I am), but I get calls from a "Ten Star All-Star Basketball Camp" every summer asking me if I would run their "public service announcement." I ask if they're charging a fee. They say yes. Then I ask if they're donating the proceeds to something. They say no. Then I tell them that's an ad and transfer them to advertising. Every time I do it, the ad rep calls back saying "There's no one there."

 

We have plenty of those in our area, and they get covered, and always put in news. There's never even been a debate about that in our newsroom. Maybe if a NASCAR driver and his ride made an appearance at a show it might get moved over to sports, but otherwise, yeah, news.

 

No way its sports.

 

I love when you go this route and the camp director insists that they aren't doing it for the money - nay, they barely make a dime - but do it for the kids to help the local sports scene.