Sports Redesign ... Need help!

I'm the SE for the college paper at a state school, where football's king, and we're attempting a sports redesign and would appreciate any advice.

The biggest issue? The ME, EIC and ME of Design want to move our Friday football page (which normally takes up sports front) to the back page. No jumps.

They want us to have a football story on Sports front (which would jump to another page) and the rest of the football stories on the back page. Quite frankly, I think that's a whole lot of hassle --- and a bad idea. We already have the preview on News front, so there'll be at least five football stories scattered over four pages.

Their main argument is the back page is more prominent.

They won't listen to me, but they seemed open to the idea of listening to professionals in the business. So, tell me, who's the idiot --- me or them?

My heart might be in the right place but maybe I'm just ignorant here. Seriously. Any advice --- or a little sarcasm --- would be appreciated.

 

I'm guessing your paper is all one section -- if so, wouldn't you want your football stories on the back (essentially your front page -- they're right, it's more prominent) instead of burying them inside?

If it's an insert, fuck 'em, throw all your stuff there.

 

If your entire paper is a one-section paper, they are right, especially if you have a deal like my weekly paper has (four-color on the front and back pages only; black and white elsewhere).

If it's an insert, it should all go in one section.

 

Yeah, that's the thing. Sometimes it's one section, sometimes it's two sections --- depends on business. Roughly 40 percent of the time we had two sections.

And, on the days we had two sections, it was mostly because those were the BIG games, so our business department was able to sell more ads.

The ME still tried arguing with me, that in a two-section paper, the back of Sports section is still the second thing someone jumps to --- and, thus, is a great place to put football.

 

If you have two sections, you'd obviously rather have the front page of page 2. But if you're going to have to make a permanent decision since you don't know what days you'll have two pages, I guess just suck it up and take the back page -- it's still small enough where it still works as a front page for a section in terms of visibility.