NBA coverage in podunk

[Mooninite]

Got a question about NBA coverage...

Just wondering how much medium sized and smaller dailies in Podunk USA go with NBA coverage.
Daily roundups? Game stories on the closest NBA team?

I was just wondering because we run little on the NBA. We're in the middle of nowhere in Ohio at a small paper with a circ of 25,000.

We run the big NBA news. But there are some days if the Cavs don't play where we don't run anything but the standings. But 5 of 6 days we are flush with local copy.

Have never heard any complaints so I'm starting to wonder if anyone outside of the coasts and big urban centers even care about the NBA (or NHL for that matter besides maybe the upper Midwest).

What about it?

 

[Breakyoself]

we do daily roundups, and maybe a bigger story if the Heat ( I am in Florida) do something big.

 

[Bob Slydell]

Got a question about NBA coverage...

Just wondering how much medium sized and smaller dailies in Podunk USA go with NBA coverage.
Daily roundups? Game stories on the closest NBA team?

I was just wondering because we run little on the NBA. We're in the middle of nowhere in Ohio at a small paper with a circ of 25,000.

We run the big NBA news. But there are some days if the Cavs don't play where we don't run anything but the standings. But 5 of 6 days we are flush with local copy.

Have never heard any complaints so I'm starting to wonder if anyone outside of the coasts and big urban centers even care about the NBA (or NHL for that matter besides maybe the upper Midwest).

What about it?

We rarely run a roundup, fill mostly with local, run the boxes if we have room. College is more of our thing at out 13,000 daily.

BTW, are you in Sandusky?

 

[Angola!]

Mooninite, we too don't run much either. We are in Texas, so we try and run briefs on the three Texas teams and standings. We never run roundups or boxes that I've seen. Though, I guess during the holidays someone may have gotten desperate, but I don't think so.
At my old shop in a non-NBA state we ran full boxes, standings and roundups. As for why, I don't know.

 

[2underpar]

We're two hours from the closest NBA team. we run nba standings and boxes, and if something major happens. No roundups. rarely does anybody complain.
We run the NHL standings. again, hardly hear complaints.

 

[slappy4428]

We're two hours from the closest NBA team. we run nba standings and boxes, and if something major happens. No roundups. rarely does anybody complain.
We run the NHL standings. again, hardly hear complaints.

All hail, king of podunk...

 

[MC Sports Guy]

We run all NBA boxes, expanded glance and gamers from the teams of local interest. For Hockey, just standings and gamers of local interest, but they're given lower priority. I'm at a 13,000 daily.

 

[WSKY]

Mooninite, we too don't run much either. We are in Texas, so we try and run briefs on the three Texas teams and standings. We never run roundups or boxes that I've seen. Though, I guess during the holidays someone may have gotten desperate, but I don't think so.
At my old shop in a non-NBA state we ran full boxes, standings and roundups. As for why, I don't know.

It's probably done because it's easy to fill space that way. In my opinion, it's a waste, because most people could care less about some teams, but maybe more about some of the regional ones. To run boxes on all is retarded. No one reads them.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

WSKY? No one reads box scores? In what universe? I'd bet there's a significant percentage of readers of all sports sections who read nothing BUT the top sports' box scores.

 

[Almost_Famous]

At small papers where space is tight, why run box scores at all when the box scores are online 20 minutes after the game is complete?

The fans who want the box score will find them the night after the game.

Maybe I'm assuming everyone has the internet.

 

[Appgrad05]

At a 15,000 daily we run roundups, w/art if team 3 hours away plays, and standings in agate.

 

[Canuck Pappy]

I'm in Ontario, so all NBA stuff goes in agate, (scores and skeds). We also use the CP Raptor stories.
We used to do a roundup during the regular season but it was cut last year. Zero complaints,

 

[MC Sports Guy]

Running all NBA box scores is far from "retarded." Fans of the NBA do care about what's going on elsewhere, and maybe others just like to see how much Kobe scored last night or something like that. Not everyone will read it, but there isn't one thing in the paper that everyone likes. Our job is to try and serve as many as possible.

 

[HejiraHenry]

35K here, about two hours door-to-door from an NBA arena if the lights will cooperate.

We have folks in our market who are fans of the team and a certain small slice of season ticket holders, even.

We try to use the AP story (and box) from that team every night. Otherwise, we do a decent preview at the start of the season, keep an eye out for features of interest, always try to cover the big news (Kobe's 81), and avoid the daily roundup thing until the playoffs start. Once a week, we do an update on the league at the bottom of the scoreboard page, featuring three regional teams of interest and a "wild card" team.

Once in a blue moon, when a player with state/area ties comes through, we might ease over the arena for some face time. We could do more, but it would help if the team would cooperate by not sucking so badly.

I wrote a story at the start of the month about the team's home schedule, which had a bunch of interesting games on it in terms of the players who would be in town (Duncan, Garnett, Nash, Nowitzki, etc.)

I can imagine there will be quite a bit of interest in the NBA Draft. The team's hometown paper has already started writing features about the top draft prospects.

 

[RFB-Boy]

We're roughly eight hours away from an NBA team (Unless the Jazz count, then three) and we run a daily rup, often led off by the Jazz when deadline permits. Deadline permits about half of the time, since ours is the earliest of any AM I've ever heard of.

Personally, I think it's a little silly to run a full rup when we've already got the glance and boxes in the agate, but it's not my decision, so I roll with the status quo. Personally, unless Arenas goes off for 51 again, I could care less how the Wizards won. I'm willing to be that sentiment would be echoed often around our area. Just guessing here.

 

[User 6659]

We're at least four from one NBA team and 7 from another. We run small glance and 1 or 2 sentence roundups on each game each night. No boxes, not even for local teams. We'll run an AP feature on the one of the teams every week or so.

Same goes with the NHL, also about 4 hours away. Rdps each day, only a sentence or two on each game that night, and a glance in the scoreboard.

 

[WSKY]

WSKY? No one reads box scores? In what universe? I'd bet there's a significant percentage of readers of all sports sections who read nothing BUT the top sports' box scores.

Let me rephrase that. No one reads NBA boxes in our non-NBA city. Well, maybe they do ... but I gotta think there's room for something else in our six-page (eight on weekend) section. I think there's room for some of the regional ones, but all of them? I think in baseball (and NFL too) box scores are much more important because of the fantasy aspect, but in NBA, or NHL, I personally could care less. I want to know who won, who led each team and that's about it.

 

[Crimson Tide]

We don't go with "they're already online in the AP sports feed" because the toothless rubes in our area still consider dial-up to be futuristic technology.

 

[Mooninite]

I guess we're not so far out of line with everyone else. We bump it up when the playoffs start of course.

Bob...I'm from Flag City USA...or right now Flood City USA.

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

Jesus Christ, no one cares about the NBA. You'd be better off running horse racing agate.