"We don't cover you because you don't generate page views"

Maybe, instead of trying to get them to cover your games, try to find some features that the paper would be interested in writing about. You have a lot of athletes. Some of them must have some sort of compelling story that readers would find interesting, beyond the stats and numbers.

 

I wouldn't be too outraged by the thought, Doc. You know, newspapers did once cover their community as a matter of record. In fact, it seemed to work out pretty well for a long time.

I don't think it's outlandish to wish that bean-counters didn't make the editorial decisions.

 

I empathize with Dan here. I wish newspapers were still the all-encompassing things they once were. When I took over as an SE, I tried to make sure all the colleges in our area were given their proper respect. It became impossible.

A lot of that is staff sizes, but much of it is the fact that we now have metrics to see what people do and don't read - and, sadly, there's no point in sending people to routinely cover something that few readers are interested in.

(I've also wondered how long it would take for metros to use that same logic to kill off preps coverage. That's another topic, though.)

 

That's next ... especially in mid- to metro-sized dailies.

 

This. I can't tell you how many times I've called or emailed a D-II, D-III and NAIA SID practically begging for a good feature idea on one of their athletes, only to get, a) nothing, or b) Johnny Jumpshot is third in the league in scoring this season.

 

Gamer coverage in the regular season for anything other than football or boys basketball is a waste of resources, IN MOST CASES. Before shotty jumps on me and tells me girls basketball may be the most popular sport in some places, that's great. If that's the case, run with it. But in my experiences, the only sports that drew any interest outside of the non-parent crowd in the regular season were the big two. Playoffs are obviously a different story. If there's a giant wrestling invitational in town on a Saturday, that's different story. But we wasted so much time at girls basketball games played in front of 20 people that it was ridiculous.

 

I wouldn't presume to jump on you for that.

 

Doc Holiday, all I know is that back in the day when I was on the other side, I'd get 2 or 3 college hoops games a week in January and February and all the home games of all the local colleges were staffed by the local shop. Times were good.

When I was a one man shop at a paper in Texas, I covered a game 4 or 5 nights a week. And that included soccer and volleyball.

I've pitched some basketball related features and have had good response. What doesn't get picked up -- screw it, we do it ourselves.

I get the fact that local shops need to place high school coverage over college coverage. I actually support it. But I also believe a local shop should be committed to its local teams.

Maybe I'm just too demanding. Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold, Maybe I'm just like my mother, she's never satisfied. Might as well end this self-inflicted ass kicking with some Prince...

 

This is the best advice in this entire thread.

People largely don't care about your teams' scores or results, but a good story is a good story, no matter where it's from.

 

If you're not the talk of the town, it's not newsworthy. How many people in the community care about the team? We're living in a world where newspaper resources are thin, and gamers from an event few outside an organization care about aren't useful to readers. I don't think anyone can make a good argument why some sporting event no one attends is a community good compared to many other newsworthy events going on.

 

See also: This is why we aren't covering the JV or freshmen.