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no box scores

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by sbordow, May 9, 2008.

  1. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    I would never, ever, purchase a newspaper that didn't have box scores. Not more than once, anyway.
    I'll bet many people in Arizona feel the same way.
    My suggestion. Get your hands on the publisher's cell phone number, then leak to a Diamondbacks fan Web site.
    There's more than one bit of information readers can get online these days.
     
  2. steveu

    steveu Well-Known Member

    This is already not ending well. The suits in other cities would do well to look at reader reax here.

    By the way, massive complaints might be the way to go. Along the lines of restaurants, Ruby Tuesday tried shrinking its portion sizes without really telling anyone what they were up to -- then came the tons of protest and wham-o, suddenly the food was back to its normal size.
     
  3. lesboulez

    lesboulez Member

    i was told to do this at my old small daily. my response to the publisher was to ask "so, are we putting box scores on our web site then? don't we want to drive them to OUR web site."

    he didn't like that.
     
  4. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    While I agree with the overall sentiments of this thread, I disagree with this theory.

    No fantasy folks get their information from the newspaper anymore. With sites like ESPN, Sportsline and Yahoo!, along with a host of others, providing instant updates on fantasy sports you don't have to wait until the next day in the paper.

    I'm guessing the boxes in the paper stopped being relevant for fantasy geeks in 1998.

    I still read the boxes though and miss them at my paper tremendously.
     
  5. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    Maybe you could just run the linescores, instead of the expanded boxes or the regular boxes.


    It's not the same really, but it could appease some people that want the boxes.


    Whenever newspapers finally do go under, they have no one to blame but themselves.
     
  6. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Pretty sad state of affairs. Absolutely not your fault, Scott ... but a pretty sad state of affairs.

    This smacks of an idea that came out of a "think tank."

    The better answer: Tighter, better-edited roundups. Don't think roundup reduction; think tighter. Most major league games, you can provide what is truly necessary with two grafs and a boxscore.

    AP would do all dailies a favor if they instructed their writers not to repeat the boxscore. The record of every pitcher is not necessary. The number of home runs is usually not necessary. Provide what ISN'T in the boxscore.
     
  7. D-Backs Hack

    D-Backs Hack Guest

    When the death of newspapers is summarized, the reddest-letter date will be the day management decided it is a good idea to double-dog-dare readers to go get their news somewhere else.
     
  8. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    Our editor, to his credit, has a saying: "Don't fuck with the furniture."

    We have a lot of readers who want stock listings, TV info, comics and box scores from us. Why piss 'em off?
     
  9. printdust

    printdust New Member

    Our paper did this, not just because of page-tightening but more so because of a 10:20 deadline that effectively kills all but East coast boxes, so the decision was made NOT to run two-day-old boxscores and let the customers bitch loud enough to bring the change. The problem with complaints, though, is that if it isn't followed with subscription cancellations, it's just pissing in the wind. Meanwhile, reader retention from getting papers delivered on time has actually INCREASED circulation, so with those trends, no way are TPTB going to reverse course.
     
  10. sbordow

    sbordow New Member

    An update, and some good news (How rare is that these days?) Enough readers complained about the box scores going away that management relented and allowed us to put them back in the paper. We've done away with the roundups to save space and eliminated some of the filler on the box scores, but they're back.
    Power to the people.
     
  11. Almost the same story with my paper. The agate page disappeared completely for a few days, but the outcry was amazing, so it's back.
     
  12. ondeadline

    ondeadline Well-Known Member

    This is apparently what the MLB wire coverage looks like this paper now:

    [​IMG]

    Which is quite a change from:

    [​IMG]

    I personally never look at the box scores in our print edition because I pretty much have looked at them online by the time I see the paper in the morning. I still think many people expect the boxes, though.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
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