Football previews and "themes"

Themes -- done right -- are tough to pull off. It can be done, though. Of the 8 or 9 tabs I've helped produce, we hit a home run on one, maybe two.

 

I've done three good themed tabs. Two had covers that looked like PS2 games. One was based on the Wild West. I don't mind them if the idea is solid and ties in with the cover story.

But something is to be said for a good, conventional look at the year's teams. I've always believed the tab should be a resource for fans that can be used all season long. A well-executed "basic" non-themed tab is far better than a half-cocked, poorly executed theme tab. Just my two cents.

 

I agree there is a fine line between contrived and acceptable, but there are opportunities to do some pretty cool things, too.
I've written for the APSE Web site the past two years off our exchange of football sections in the fall.

http://apse.dallasnews.com/2008/oct2008/102408carrig.html
http://apsportseditors.org/newsletter/theme-of-this-entry-themes-for-football-sections/

A couple of the themed sections that stand out are Sauk Valley and North County Times.
Sauk Valley in 2008 did "Football for Dummies" and 2009 was a takeoff on the Farmer's Almanac.
The North County Times had a pretty similar design scheme both years.
In 2009, the theme was traditions at each school:

http://www.zwire.com/site/dav.cfm?brd=3118&pag=1027&fd1=18,1027&ssid=17444

The 2008 section was very strong with a look at the top games of all time for each program, plus a list of the top 25 games in the region and a look back at the No. 1 game, which was played in 2001.
I didn't see the 2007 section but the former SE said it was the top 100 players.

Things like that can offer good reading material beyond who's back, who graduated, who's on the schedule. Also, it gives fans something to talk about beyond the day the preview comes out, especially if you use the Web for feedback and interactivity, and it can grab a few readers who may not care so much about what players Podunk High has this year but they remember that legendary game or player from 12 years ago.

 

Someone posted a link from a Washington state paper that did a really nice themed tab about two years ago. It was one of the nicest I'd ever seen.

 

The question I have to ask: Are you producing a football preview tab for yourself or for your customers? There's a certain masterbatory quality to a lot of the effort to "transcend" a mere preview section. Yet, that's exactly what your reader wants. For my money, the best football preview magazine is Phil Steele. It's a typographical train wreck, but it has one theme: Here's everything you need to know about every team.

 

This is definitely a better option than theming the whole tab. There's always a team that's expected to contend, has a new coach, is introducing a new offense, and so on, that can be featured. That way you're not pigeonholing every team in your region.

 

And in defense of the theme crowd, I guess, it's a lot easier to do that in a setting where you have 3 or 4 or 7 schools.

Our high school tab will have 45+ schools in it. Just executing that plan is enough.

 

I just remember a KC Star themed football tab that knocked me off my feet I found it so creative and clever. The theme was reality shows. The only ones I remember now were "Pimp My Ride", with Mizzou's Brad Smith driving a cardboard car during the offseason when supposedly he and a bunch of seniors went to Gary Pinkle and demanded he change the offense, and a fashion themed one that was in the football tab, but written by the A&E staff (I think) and a take off on some fashion reality show.

Anyway, every new section I'd open -- the K-State section and the KU section and the NFL, and the Chiefs -- every one, left me thinking "Well played, KC Star. Well played!"

Must have been 2006.

 

We had the same issue, so we chose the 10 schools that fit our theme the best and went with them. The rest got feature/preview treatment. All told, we thought it turned out pretty well.

 

For years, my rag did football previews - high school only for seven schools in a tri-county area - with no theme.

In the past few years, we've done Madden (each school had a zoned cover dropped off with a Madden mock-up with top senior), TV shows, Greatest Show on Hardwood (circus themed for basketball), courts (basketball again, feature shots in local courthouse) and Better Homes and Gridirons (fun feature shots in hardware stores and subdivision under construction).

Only time we've ever gotten awards from the corporation and state press association have been since we went to themes. Three straight years we've taken the corporation's award for best daily special section of any kind (news, features, sports, whatever).

Advertising in these sections has gone up since we started theming. We've had to print more copies, too, because we're having more and more readers wanting to buy extra copies.

I think we've done a good job of NOT forcing the themes on specific teams or players.

I will say doing the theming ones have taken more time, effort and help from coaches/players/businesses. We've also had to get it through to our ad staff/potential advertisers that we can't have random ads in the section either.

It's been a win-win so far for us.

 

Coming up with a themed preview tab earlier in my career was a bigger priority than it is now. We won awards, for whatever their worth, for all of them. But as the years went on, it seemed better to either have a very subtle, easier-to-execute theme or simply none at all. Just focusing on the information is enough.