College game-day tabs

[HejiraHenry]

We're likely going to do one this fall, as our carbon footprint straddles two SEC schools.

Anybody out there doing this and willing to share some thoughts?

I'm particularly concerned about how that affects your "regular" sports section on Saturdays.

 

[Chi City 81]

We're likely going to do one this fall, as our carbon footprint straddles two SEC schools.

Anybody out there doing this and willing to share some thoughts?

I'm particularly concerned about how that affects your "regular" sports section on Saturdays.

At our paper, we have people working on the tab and people working on the regular section. Same thing on game days.

 

[HejiraHenry]

We're likely going to do one this fall, as our carbon footprint straddles two SEC schools.

Anybody out there doing this and willing to share some thoughts?

I'm particularly concerned about how that affects your "regular" sports section on Saturdays.

At our paper, we have people working on the tab and people working on the regular section. Same thing on game days.

That would be nice.

 

[Rockbottom]

Echoing The Good Doctor, I generally produce our game-day section each week and leave the daily designing to our primary designers. That way, I can work on it starting Monday and not have to fret OT in the process.

Good luck ... and be careful what you wish for with obtaining advertisers. We have so many now, it pushes the broadsheet paging to up to 24 pages PER section. Whew.

rb

 

[ServeItUp]

At one paper it was a four-page wrap around the regular Saturday section. The graphics guy worked on the cover, which featured:

• miniature action figures positioned next to the names of both teams' two deeps
• a rail with the basics of game information like time, stadium, radio/TV info, Web cast info, weather, series records, coaches, etc.
• the start of "our" team's feature and a column

Someone would distribute the jumps to the two inside half-pages, along with a feature on the other team and complete team rosters. The back page was an ad. Pretty easy stuff.

 

[JayFarrar]

It actually kind of helps if you do a gameday section or tab.
If the area is big on high school football, the regular section turns into preps and national coverage.
Gameday becomes your college coverage and you can design massive setpieces to help fill space, half-page starting lineup graphics, a full page of head-to-head matchups, that sort of thing. And since most of the material is done in advance, you can start on it early and it isn't a headache. Well, it is still a headache, but you can avoid some problems early if you work with the ad department. Try to get them to sell sponsorships, that way you'll have a fairly consistent ad stack.
So like you might do a full page of matchups, but at the bottom, you'll have a 6cx2 or 3" ad. For each issue and the bowl games. Oh wait, never mind on the bowl games. But you know what I mean.

 

[Central-KY-Kid]

Since my paper doesn't have a Saturday paper, we don't do GameDay wraps.

Here's some of the ones off newspagedesigner:

http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/fullsize_view.php?PageID=32729
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/3089/gameday.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/858/WAKEGAMEDAY05.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/858/PITTGAMEDAY.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/856/GameDay1019.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/7528/040106_F1.JPG
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/7528/091005_F1.JPG
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/13536/051104GD.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/6362/gday1.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D06_RE_EZ_DAILY_20031011.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D06_RE_EZ_DAILY_20031018.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D07_M2_EZ_DAILY_20031004.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D07_SU_EZ_DAILY_20030913.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D09_RE_EZ_DAILY_20030920.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/310/D09_SU_EZ_DAILY_20031025.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/134/hornsags.jpg

 

[The Rules of Golf]

The cool kids who produce these things also put one at every reporter's seat at the Podunk A&M press box.

 

[Rockbottom]

I wondered if anybody noticed that ... Lord knows our prepress guys do when I am spiriting out 300 of them Friday afternoons!

RB

 

[shotglass]

Our four-pager is in the middle of our Saturday section.

Page 1 is the beat writer's pick and short (8-10") overview; picks by columnist, sports editor and a beat writer from the opposing team; and, a facts and figures rail.

Pages 2-3 is a poster-sized Penn State player photo. (Remember, we're a tabloid.) A "keepsake" for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Page 4 is graphic two-deep lineups, and a two-column box where the beat writer breaks it down position by position, rating each one PSU, the opponent, or even.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Well, we got the first one out.

I was only 4 1/2 hours late punching the button on it. (Not as bad as it sounds, really; we integrated a new system last week and that accounted for much of it, along with scrambling after a Thursday night game, blah blah blah).

Got one phone message Saturday, from somebody who couldn't "find that GameDay coverage on Page 3. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?"

The one fear with a tab insert, of course, is that somebody doesn't get it inserted in their paper.

 

[Idaho]

I'd love it if my paper decided to join the trend and do them. LOVE IT.

 

[HejiraHenry]

It was like having a 12-page sports section on Saturday, without the sense we had to compromise a lot on other things. Major league baseball usually gets hurt badly on Saturdays, but we were able to do the full page we usually have (though we did lock it up a little bit early -- well, a lot early -- for first edition).

From the perspective of getting one out of the way, I feel like the next one should be so much better. For onee thing, both of "our" teams play this Saturday, so the thing will balance out better.

 

[TheMethod]

We put out our weekly college football tab on Fridays, which seems to work pretty well. Our Saturday papers are loaded with high school football, obviously, but we cover three colleges, so we've got plenty of college stuff to get in, plus Friday gives the reader a day to digest everything rather than breeze through it between their first cup of coffee and the first kickoff at 11:30 a.m.

 

[Chi City 81]

We have a 6-8 page section going into Saturdays and an 8-10 page section on Sundays. This in addition to our normal 6-10 page sections on both days. Good times ... but it's worth it.

 

[shotglass]

With us being a tab sports section anyway, we do something a little different.

Our Penn State and Big Ten stuff goes on the back end of the sports section -- upside down. So if you want to go to Penn State, you turn the paper over. Been doing it for four seasons now, I think.

First one of year went pretty good -- except for Big Ten standings strip. We have two facing pages on the rest of the Big Ten, and put the standings in as two pieces so it goes across the entire double truck. For final edition, I accidentally put the first half in on both pages. Dammit.

 

[Chi City 81]

With us being a tab sports section anyway, we do something a little different.

Our Penn State and Big Ten stuff goes on the back end of the sports section -- upside down. So if you want to go to Penn State, you turn the paper over. Been doing it for four seasons now, I think.

First one of year went pretty good -- except for Big Ten standings strip. We have two facing pages on the rest of the Big Ten, and put the standings in as two pieces so it goes across the entire double truck. For final edition, I accidentally put the first half in on both pages. Dammit.

DyePack has no idea why he just ejaculated.

 

[shotglass]

I think, on some deep level, I wrote that with him in mind.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Well, we're six weeks into this project, about halfway through the projected 13-issue run.

Advertising has basically hit the target – or slightly better – each week.

Reader response has been pretty good.

But in six weeks I've had six different advertising configurations, which makes advance planning kinda tricky. A noon Friday deadline means I can't wait on AP to deliver their formal advances for stuff, and some MCT copy that seems to always move after dark on Fridays (too late, really, to be of any use regardless) obviously doesn't help me with this project.

But our writers have embraced the form and we've gotten much better coverage of some things that usually have been tricky for us – state small colleges and the rather successful D-I school that's too far downstate for us to assign as a beat.

After a couple of weeks, I realized it was a production structure more like the weeklies where I worked at back in the day – the most important days are before the dummies get into my hands, when I have time to put together a small-college feature or some stat-related thing at my (relative) leisure, sketch out a cover and look for the right art, etc., etc.

I push hard on Wednesday evening, which is pretty quiet this time of year, tackle problem areas on Thursday and the final quality control touches on Friday morning.

So far, so good.

 

[Rockbottom]

Good for you, Hejira.

It helps, for me at least, to have 5-6 formatted open pages each week. That way, I can work on those early in the week and know going in I need those pages plus whatever ad-laden extra pages they give me. I tend to save the features that AP moves through the week, as well as national individual and team stats as well. Plus, we do rosters/depth charts on a page and the conference capsules (courtesy www.uofpodunk'sconference.com) on another page.

You think Friday noon is tricky. I get my dummies Wednesday at 6 p.m., and they print first thing Friday -- which means I basically have to have it all done Thursday night. I am ready for the season to be over with.

rb