The sacred MLB boxes

I'd agree with you, but I appear to be deceased.

 

You have conflated a discussion about MLB boxes (2,592 pieces of agate and game summaries scattered across seven months) with NFL agate (240 packed into about four months, almost all on Sunday). There is a material difference there.

 

We stopped running boxes long ago. We fielded complaints for maybe a week or two - and not consistently - but they got over it. We would never cut local for agate, especially being a 16K hyper-local daily. I've had complaints with too much national and not enough local before.

 

You could do it if you work in the middle of nowhere, but not in a competitive newspaper market. I think the age argument is a simplistic one to rationalize dropping something. To me it's not a question of how many people want the box scores or whether the space can better be used on something else -- it's a matter of avoiding looking like you're not a go-to sports section anymore, you're just some supplemental piece of crap.

 

Debate depends on circ size. I spent the past 15 years at major metros with pro teams, and I'd push every bit of ordinary preps results/notebooks/gamers online before I'd get rid of baseball boxes or squeeze NFL coverage on Mondays. Boxes are a staple to the most loyal demographic we have. Different landscape for smaller papers covering 5-10 high schools compared with metros tracking 70-130. Obviously more general interest in pro sports in the major markets. If you're in a major market, you want to know when the next Derrick Rose is coming along, but there isn't much widespread interest in 8 cols of ordinary preps results every day.

 

The local rag I get is a supplemental piece of crap and it stopped running all boxes scores save for the state's one MLB team two years ago. I pretty much read it to read the local news that nobody else covers. I sure as hell don't read it for sports because I don't have kids and no longer work in sports or journalism period -- so I could give a shit less about preps, especially 20-inch stories with photos on spring sports preps that draw a crowd of 10. Part of that comes from covering one too many track meets, and the only thing that's worse than track is field (old joke). Part of that comes from growing up in a big-league baseball-crazy city where the paper would get killed for axing boxes.

I guess since I like baseball boxes...moreso because the team I grew up following all of a sudden got pretty good last year and I got really interested again...I'm dead as well. RIP me. Out.

 

There are a whole lot of places where an awful lot more people give a shit about Major League Baseball than give a shit about some prep soccer game or a guy who won a shooting contest two states over last week.

 

You have conflated a discussion about MLB boxes (2,592 pieces of agate and game summaries scattered across seven months) with NFL agate (240 packed into about four months, almost all on Sunday). There is a material difference there.
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I do not think he's comparing.

I think his point is that people *did* complain about NFL boxes not appearing. Take away the baseball part of the discussion, and it's an interesting point.

I think the point that the vast majority of them appear on the same day -- and usually before deadline -- is a good one, too.

 

Well ... yeah, and there are a lot who care more about the prep soccer game. It's all dependent on where you are.

 

And what the boss wants. We're about 20k these days and we run all local, 80% preps. We run wire on the state pro teams, no agate, and nothing for out of market agate. That's what's mandated by the magaging editor. All local. No luxury for choice, discussion or soap boxing.