College game-day tabs

We're likely going to do one this fall, as our carbon footprint straddles two SEC schools.

Anybody out there doing this and willing to share some thoughts?

I'm particularly concerned about how that affects your "regular" sports section on Saturdays.

 

At our paper, we have people working on the tab and people working on the regular section. Same thing on game days.

 

That would be nice.

 

Echoing The Good Doctor, I generally produce our game-day section each week and leave the daily designing to our primary designers. That way, I can work on it starting Monday and not have to fret OT in the process.

Good luck ... and be careful what you wish for with obtaining advertisers. We have so many now, it pushes the broadsheet paging to up to 24 pages PER section. Whew.

rb

 

At one paper it was a four-page wrap around the regular Saturday section. The graphics guy worked on the cover, which featured:

• miniature action figures positioned next to the names of both teams' two deeps
• a rail with the basics of game information like time, stadium, radio/TV info, Web cast info, weather, series records, coaches, etc.
• the start of "our" team's feature and a column

Someone would distribute the jumps to the two inside half-pages, along with a feature on the other team and complete team rosters. The back page was an ad. Pretty easy stuff.

 

It actually kind of helps if you do a gameday section or tab.
If the area is big on high school football, the regular section turns into preps and national coverage.
Gameday becomes your college coverage and you can design massive setpieces to help fill space, half-page starting lineup graphics, a full page of head-to-head matchups, that sort of thing. And since most of the material is done in advance, you can start on it early and it isn't a headache. Well, it is still a headache, but you can avoid some problems early if you work with the ad department. Try to get them to sell sponsorships, that way you'll have a fairly consistent ad stack.
So like you might do a full page of matchups, but at the bottom, you'll have a 6cx2 or 3" ad. For each issue and the bowl games. Oh wait, never mind on the bowl games. But you know what I mean.

 

Since my paper doesn't have a Saturday paper, we don't do GameDay wraps.

Here's some of the ones off newspagedesigner:

http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/fullsize_view.php?PageID=32729
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/3089/gameday.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/858/WAKEGAMEDAY05.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/858/PITTGAMEDAY.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/856/GameDay1019.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/7528/040106_F1.JPG
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/7528/091005_F1.JPG
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/13536/051104GD.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/6362/gday1.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D06_RE_EZ_DAILY_20031011.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D06_RE_EZ_DAILY_20031018.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D07_M2_EZ_DAILY_20031004.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D07_SU_EZ_DAILY_20030913.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D09_RE_EZ_DAILY_20030920.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D09_SU_EZ_DAILY_20031025.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/134/hornsags.jpg

 

The cool kids who produce these things also put one at every reporter's seat at the Podunk A&M press box.

 

I wondered if anybody noticed that ... Lord knows our prepress guys do when I am spiriting out 300 of them Friday afternoons!

RB

 

Our four-pager is in the middle of our Saturday section.

Page 1 is the beat writer's pick and short (8-10") overview; picks by columnist, sports editor and a beat writer from the opposing team; and, a facts and figures rail.

Pages 2-3 is a poster-sized Penn State player photo. (Remember, we're a tabloid.) A "keepsake" for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Page 4 is graphic two-deep lineups, and a two-column box where the beat writer breaks it down position by position, rating each one PSU, the opponent, or even.

 

Well, we got the first one out.

I was only 4 1/2 hours late punching the button on it. (Not as bad as it sounds, really; we integrated a new system last week and that accounted for much of it, along with scrambling after a Thursday night game, blah blah blah).

Got one phone message Saturday, from somebody who couldn't "find that GameDay coverage on Page 3. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?"

The one fear with a tab insert, of course, is that somebody doesn't get it inserted in their paper.

 

I'd love it if my paper decided to join the trend and do them. LOVE IT.