1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Football overload?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by MidwestSportsGuy, Dec 1, 2008.

  1. crusoes

    crusoes Active Member

    As for football's popularity, I use the same yardstick with the pro and major college teams in our area. No matter if the high school hockey rink is sold out, there are still five times more people who care about the Red Wings more than any high school team. State tournaments are different, but regular season stuff gets smaller play or is pushed to inside pages where you can blow it up more.
     
  2. dargan

    dargan Active Member

    Amen.
     
  3. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    I share your concern. I really don't like single-sport fronts. I've done them (we all probably have), but I prefer to avoid them.

    This is because I realize there is a percentage of readers who don't care about a certain sport, be it football, basketball, baseball,hockey, whatever. So I try to at least have one alternate story on the cover for the sake of those readers. The only exception would be if it's ALL local: such as 4 teams in the playoffs, etc.

    But if I have 3 prep football stories, I'mnot going to round it out with a college or pro football story if I can help it. If it's going to be wire, I'd rather offer something a little different.
     
  4. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    If you have three prep football stories on the front, it's most likely, oh, Thursday, Friday or Saturday in the fall. And if you're in an area within proximity to a popular major-college football or NFL team ... it would probably behoove you not to ignore said team(s) in favor of "something different," if a majority of your readers are interested in that.

    Let's not overthink this stuff.
     
  5. I Digress

    I Digress Guest

    Why would you put anything but your best stories out front?
     
  6. Definitely understand that, and tend to agree with it after reading the various posts here. Only thing is, my paper isn't that close to an NFL team or a Division I program. I used the Oklahoma-OSU game as more of an example of a national story that I suspect would have made more sense than AP's boxing trainer piece.

    Regardless, it appears I overthought the situation. Thanks a bunch for all the responses.
     
  7. steveu

    steveu Well-Known Member

    Screw it. All baseball, all the time, 365 days a year.

    No, no, no, just kidding. What everyone else said. You play to your strengths in the region. If it's football the readers crave, football they get. If you're in a mad college hoops region or NASCAR, you try to spread the front page sports out a bit. It's what the reader wants, which some companies are forgetting this week (oh hi, Gannett!)
     
  8. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    The trick is determing what you believe are your "best stories".

    There is a line of thought --- not without merit --- that game stories are typically overlooked in this day and age where virtually every game is televised and the internet provides immediate stats, analysis, etc. So by the time the paper hits the streets, the score is old news. So is it better to go with a feature, column, etc.? Interesting fodder for thought.

    Some papers have even eliminated wire roundups of NBA, NHL, MLB, etc. because they just take up too much space and,again, those who care get their information from other sources.
     
  9. I Digress

    I Digress Guest

    Yeah, but we're not talking about round ups. Those aren't out front. You're talking about YOUR best stuff. That's your stories. On the things you cover that interest your readers. If you produce your newspaper based on people who get their info from other sources, well, you're screwed any way you do it.
     
  10. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    I'm simply saying that rare is the day when a wire game story is my best story.
     
  11. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Here in Mississippi, you CAN NOT write enough about college football.

    If we could figure a way, we could probably have a college football centerpiece 364 days a year (No paper on Christmas) and sell more papers.

    I got a call last March from a guy who said we were running too much stuff on college basketball and not enough on football. Dude, it's March. Madness, ring a bell?
     
  12. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Heh.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page