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The sacred MLB boxes

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by HejiraHenry, May 20, 2011.

  1. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    I had to laugh.

    If it's old guys like me reading box scores, half-agate type looks like ants. ;)
     
  2. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Reaction in this thread would seem to suggest the reverse is actually more the case.
     
  3. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    To say that "we" provide the box scores online is silly ----- unless you're at one of the big, big websites. The typical reader in search of box scores is going to go to MLB.com or ESPN.com or Yahoo or one of the other majors --- not the Fresno Bee or Washington Times or even a bigger paper such as Newsday. This isn't an assumption --- it's based on hard facts about who reads what on local vs. national websites.
     
  4. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    Excellent point. When I want a box, I go to mlb.com
     
  5. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    By this argument you would eliminate all national copy.

    If you know your local readers -- and aren't your print readers almost all local? -- *want* boxscores, you run them.
     
  6. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    How do you fix the ad problem? If you don't have readers, no one wants to buy ads. The circulation issue is more than giving the news away for free online. Potential readers aren't tied to their communities like they used to be.

    How can you market a paper in a bedroom community? I don't want to pick up a paper and read about a dozen traffic accidents or some shooting. I don't care about grip-and-grins or water board stories. I have too many other interests to have a desire to pay $15-20 a month for a paper with four or five local news stories, maybe that same number in sports and outdated national news briefs.
     
  7. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    The ideal solution, of course, would be to find an advertiser willing to buy a standing MLB page each day for the run of the season.

    (A tidy sum, indeed.)

    Then, you'd peel off a bit of that revenue to buy the plug-and-play MLB page from AP or whoever.

    I'm inclined to say that's where we'll go in 2012. Maybe by then somebody will think that's a good investment.
     
  8. Jake_Taylor

    Jake_Taylor Well-Known Member

    I was thinking this too, and really if it's something readers want that badly shouldn't the ad people be able to sell it?
     
  9. SoCalDude

    SoCalDude Active Member

    A little less than a year ago, our publisher was addressing the latest fad, which I think was Twitter about that time. He said something to the effect that: We don't think a lot of the things that become the latest trend will be successful, but our subscribers expect us to have them so we will have them.
     
  10. I think it depends on your readership. Lobster here certainly does not speak for our readers.

    I have been at my current 30K for going on 8 years. In that time, there has been no more vociferous response to anything in our section than when we cut all MLB boxes save the regional teams. (ME's idea.) Whatever's second place isn't even remotely close.
    It lasted a week, I believe.
     
  11. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    For as widely read as the sports section is, very few advertisers want to be there. Something about women making most of the purchasing decisions*.


    * - Outside of titty bars, sports bookies and traveling youth sports teams, which is about all the ads we ever have in our shop's sports section.
     
  12. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    That's not the case everywhere, of course. You say "titty bars," I say "lawn tractors." And, because of the color positions, we get a lot of cellular phone ads and such.
     
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