Team photos in your tabs

OK, update on the team photo situation ... They are out of the tab but will be run as part of a special couple of pages within the paper around the time the tab comes out. It works for me ...

Interesting to hear the ad side of things as we;ve debtated this here for a few days. They say that having team photos help them sell the tab since a lot of the businesses they approach have kids on the team. Part of the give and take of sales in a small community I guess. "Hey, your son's picture is going to be in the tab."

All is well here at my little shop again. Now, what exactly am I going to put in this tab? ;D

 

How big are the papers you guys are representing? I ask because it sounds like yours must have a larger circulation than mine (12,000 twice a week) and a larger coverage area than I do (8 schools).

We run three sports tabs a year — fall sports (football, volleyball, cross country, golf, tennis), winter sports (basketball, wrestling, swimming) and spring sports (baseball, softball, track). We have team pictures, plus feature stories on the teams from the two schools in town and information capsules on the teams from the other six schools. The tabs also include a cover story/feature, schedules and other filler if needed.

I can understand some of the reasons listed for trying to get away from team pictures, but I don't know if that would work in every instance for every paper (I'm a staff of one with occasional stringer help during the seasons). I've always considered the tabs to be a preview of the teams, so the team shots seemed natural.

And if a player or group of players deserve special attention, why not run a feature with photos, along with the team previews.

I applaud those who think of different ways to present the information, and if they succeed, more power to them. There are papers in my area which do use other shots for their tabs, but I find their presentation of information to be lacking, and the absence of a team picture just seems to add to that.

I'll guess we'll just agree to disagree.

 

My EIC here loves team photos he thinks they are more important than any other kind of photo we can run

 

You're close. More like 1987.

 

I've worked in places like that. Even had a publisher tell us to "just make sure you get all their names in" a game story.
Thankfully, it's not like that now.
There's a time and place for everything. At our paper, that means team shots in tab.

 

solid freakin' post.

 

You laugh, but we really did have people like that at my old stop. Two brothers grew up in the area, became successful businessmen and gave lots and lots of money back to the area, on one condition.

Their photos ran in the newspaper. No photo, no money.

We played that game for many years. Then one day, not long after I left, our editor wrote a column that basically said if you're going to give, give from the heart, not to show the world what wonderful people you are.

The odd thing about it was that they were both really, really weird looking. Both wore atrocious toupees, one had a Hitler-like mustache and the other always had really, really dark glasses. It's a really small pic, but you can see it here:

http://tinyurl.com/ypm3oe

Back to the lecture at hand: I've seen a fair amount of tabs that use them and they're nothing but distracting, especially on a big team like football. Your eye isn't drawn to anything whatsoever.

Avoid them if you can, but for some, it may be the best option.

 

The ol' team-photo issue is one of the true litmus tests of whether your preseason section is an editorial vehicle or an advertising vehicle.

If the higher-ups make it clear that it's an advertising vehicle, there's not a helluva lot you can do. And the final product will not be your fault. Just hope that someday you get to do football sections that are editorial vehicles.

 

In Pennsylvania, you could devote an entire page to a team photo and the schedule (so everyone can hang it on their fridge) and so many ads (Joe's Pizza, Slim's Auto) would be sold along with it, there would be no room for a story. It was actually nice.

Then you had the freedom to do what you wanted with the preview which ran on a separate page.

If the ad people cannot sell a football tab, then something is wrong.

Granted, this was a 45-50 page tab for 15 high schools and 3-4 colleges.

God, I miss high school football in Pennsylvania.

 

Like others have said, we have the team photos as part of a full-page block ad with the schedule and little sig ads at the bottom, as you would see on the back of a program.

I've personally got no problem with it. Unlike other papers in my state, we make a tidy profit off this tab. While none of that goes into my pocket, it surely doesn't hurt when I need to fill a part-time opening or whatever. If advertisers will only chip in money if its underneath the team photo, then we'll continue to run the team photo.

I kind of go back and forth on the correct approach for tabs. I'd love to do a theme or something that may get consideration for various awards, but is that what readers really want? If not, then who are we doing these tabs for? Ourselves or the readers?