Sports in the Wall Street Journal?

[PHINJ]

SPORTS! SPORTS! SPORTS! OI! OI! OI!

http://www.observer.com/2008/murdoch-bury-leder-rethinks-journal-strategy

Last graf:

Mr. Murdoch also discussed the value of sports in the newspaper, said three people. At one point, while speaking about the limitations of The Journal’s production plants, he said that it would serve a reader to have a table of sports scores for a traveling businessman; he didn’t specifically say The Journal would add a sports section, but that it could have a role in the paper.

 

[Moderator1]

There's an old book that is a collection of sports stories from the Wall Street Journal. Good stuff.

 

[fishwrapper]

Absolutely a logistical nightmare.
Murdoch opened his mouth without knowing plant-sharing and distribution contacts.
Not to mention start times to games, apparently.

 

[The Commish]

He might want to talk to Stefan Fastis, who covers sports for the Journal. OK, not daily games, but it's not like there is nothing in there.

 

[statrat]

I think Murdoch is about 30 years behind the times. How many travelling businessmen check the paper for sports scores. I believe most of them use that fad called the interwebs or something like that.

 

[accguy]

I don't know that it is that far behind the times. While the WSJ does have some sports and sports biz stories (it has former NYDN reporter Darren Everson and former Denver Post Nuggets writer Adam Thompson), I think there could be something to adding a page or two of smart sports stories.

This is simply from my personal perspective: I enjoy much of the WSJ, especially the Marketplace section. I enjoy the NYT, but maybe not quite as much. If I'm going to buy a paper other than the one I work at (at the airport or gas station or whatever), it's almost always going to be one of those two.

If the WSJ had a couple of pages of sports a day, I would probably buy it 9 out of 10 times. Because they don't have as much sports as the NYT it's probably about 50-50.

 

[slappy4428]

Well, the kids I know try hard enough to get their games in the WSJ... and twice on Sunday!

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Absolutely a logistical nightmare.
Murdoch opened his mouth without knowing plant-sharing and distribution contacts.
Not to mention start times to games, apparently.

Ah, the glories of Left Coast boxes in Eastern editions . . .

Ask Frank.

 

[Football_Bat]

Would not work. It barely works in the USAT. You'd have to go feature- and enterprise-heavy to try to even make it work.

 

[Reid Laymance]

The National Sports Daily partnered with the Wall Street Journal for distribution back in the day and that didn't exactly result in score-friendly deadlines.

 

[wickedwritah]

What Reid said.

But what about an NFL Monday page? Every game but the Sunday nighter ends early enough, and I'd imagine there'd be money in it.

 

[Bill Brasky]

They run sports stuff pretty regularly in the Journal - maybe once or twice a week in the Personal Journal/Weekend Journal section. Not scores, but some smart, interesting analysis....there was one a while back on which college football teams produced the best pros.

 

[forever_town]

Perhaps if the WSJ is looking to bring in its sort of analysis-based sports writing into a regular daily feature, it'd be a good thing.

I'm not sure how many people would lap up a steady diet of it, but there is potential there for some fascinating reading.

 

[Clerk Typist]

The Journal's deadline is approximately 8:30 p.m. ET. Nothing's over by then unless it's played at Wrigley Field or in Europe.
That anthology was a collection of columns by Frederick Klein, I think, from the 1970s and 1980s. Excellent stuff. He'd cover, say, the Super Bowl, write a column for Tuesday's Journal, and have an angle everyone else missed.

 

[wickedwritah]

The Journal's deadline is approximately 8:30 p.m. ET. Nothing's over by then unless it's played at Wrigley Field or in Europe.
That anthology was a collection of columns by Frederick Klein, I think, from the 1970s and 1980s. Excellent stuff. He'd cover, say, the Super Bowl, write a column for Tuesday's Journal, and have an angle everyone else missed.

How did The National work around those deadlines? Yikes.

 

[Clerk Typist]

There were three editions, the early Cross-Country -- more or less a bulldog for non-metro areas -- and two in the evening one at about 11 p.m. and a chase following that.
The Cross-Country went out on the Dow Jones trucks with the Journal in many cases (things could differ from city to city). The trucks would come back for the later runs. And the National was generally, maybe in every case, printed elsewhere than the Journal, because it was a tab and ran color. The Journal didn't run color back in 1990-91.
Geez, was it that long ago?!

 

[trifectarich]

This will never happen. The few times the Journal dabbles in sports, it's for that reader who has to be reminded that the New York Yankees are a baseball team and that basketballs are round. These people are far more interested in the exchange rate or what the markets are doing in Korea.

 

[The Commish]

Well, a New York Times story tomorrow (Jan. 29) says it's going to happen, along with a move to Midtown:

The Wall Street Journal miles away from Wall Street? Covering sports?

Yes, the paper that has chronicled business from Lower Manhattan for 119 years is making plans to start a sports page and move to the Midtown offices of its corporate parent, the News Corporation, according to people briefed on the matters.

A couple of other highlights lower down:

Mr. Murdoch says he wants The Journal to expand nonbusiness coverage, especially in areas like politics, government and entertainment, while also making it more inviting and easier to read. Adding sports reporting would seem to fit into that strategy.

The Journal regularly covers the business of sports, but does not cover the sports themselves extensively. But in recent years, seeking more ads aimed at consumers rather than businesses, it has greatly expanded its lifestyle and consumer reporting, adding “softer” sections like Personal Journal and Weekend Journal, and a Saturday newspaper.

People at the paper who have been briefed on the plan say it is very likely that a sports page, possibly tucked into Personal Journal, will be created in the next few months. But they cautioned that it was not yet clear how often the page would appear or what kinds of articles it would contain.

Covering sports events that last late into the night would be logistically difficult for The Journal, which goes to press unusually early for a major newspaper. Mr. Murdoch said at a recent meeting of bureau chiefs and editors that he wanted to find a way to allow later deadlines.

 

[zebracoy]

Covering sports events that last late into the night would be logistically difficult for The Journal, which goes to press unusually early for a major newspaper. Mr. Murdoch said at a recent meeting of bureau chiefs and editors that he wanted to find a way to allow later deadlines.

Knowing its audience, what if the WSJ put a few feature stories on a page or two, but jumped them to the Internet, where the readers could enter a copy of their paper's bar code number, their own subscription number, etc. to read the past-deadline stuff?

Sure, that's difficult, but so is any reasonable alternative.

 

[STLIrish]

That might just work, Zebra. Or some sort of expanded online sports section. But I just don't see gamers in the Journal. It doesn't make sense, on a lot of levels. They only barely do next-day gamers on the news, aside from the very big stuff - most of what they do is really analysis, enterprise and features.
I suspect what we'll see is a lot of take-outs around the big games of the day/week, perhaps more business of sports stuff, maybe the occasional investigation, and a columnist or two. The sports equivalent of what they do now on economic news.