The sacred MLB boxes

[HejiraHenry]

This is worth a look, if you haven't seen it. Huntsville (Ala.) sports editor surveys some peers on MLB box scores.

http://apsportseditors.org/newsletter/the-dilemma-box-scores-vs-tight-space/

Thoughts?

 

[Moderator1]

We run every single box score. Every last one.
On the web page.

We're multi-platform daily journalists now, gang. Not newspaper people. Still not sure we've figured out the best way to use both but we'll keep trying and maybe get it right.

 

[HejiraHenry]

The puzzling thing in that survey, to me, is the 9 sports editors who say they have willingly cut their own local copy in order to continue running major league boxes. That seems unwise on several levels, not the least of which is discounting the value of stuff produced by their own local staffs.

 

[jr/shotglass]

We'd get crushed.

And I'd probably make one of the calls.

This goes beyond the information imparted by these. It has to do with picking up your newspaper and having it feel a little bit like it did in 2000, 1990, 1980, etc.

 

[HejiraHenry]

We'd get crushed.

And I'd probably make one of the calls.

This goes beyond the information imparted by these. It has to do with picking up your newspaper and having it feel a little bit like it did in 2000, 1990, 1980, etc.

You say "nostalgia," I say "vinyl records." They still exist, but the masses have no interest in buying them.

 

[BTExpress]

I'm a dinosaur.

I like looking at four box scores, the day's pitching matchups and the standings . . . only having to move my eyes a couple of millimeters.

On the web it's 14 clicks to accomplish all that.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Yes. I'll be a dinosaur on that, too. I'm not giving up everything I grew up with.

 

[I Should Coco]

We've had the discussion both at my current shop (about 20K) and a previous shop where I did a lot more sports on a "universal desk" (a 40K -- and falling fast -- daily).

Both places decided to stick with box scores, because they're popular with older readers. And that's the overwhelming majority of our customers.

Does that mean prep gamers, photos and agate gets cut back somewhat? Yes, but not just because of baseball/space constraints. Also because of staff cutbacks.

These decisions suck ... there's no right answer.

 

[I Should Coco]

Looking at the Big Picture, the MLB box score debate is a microcosm of the main problem for print newspapers:

There's a hardcore, loyal group of readers who are 50-plus and expect as much in print as we can give them.

And there's a hardcore, unreachable group of readers who are under 40 and have no time or desire for the print edition in its current format.

So how do you continue to provide what 90 percent of your current customers want, while also trying to tweak the product to attract people who you hope will someday be your future 50-plus readers? And how do you do this with ever-dwindling staff and resources?

Again, I haven't heard any good answers to this problem. We're still trying to find one.

 

[Bubbler]

Other than not running the previous day's late boxes, etc., we continue to run all boxes we can. We've even started using the expanded boxes, since the digital AP feed cannot code the traditonal boxes correctly and there are several a night that randomly don't appear in our queue.

When we're in a space crunch, national stuff goes out the door first. In that sense, its important for us to maintain a viable scoreboard page.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Every news paper already has a page dedicated to those who expect to see all their baseball boxes, stock listings and comics in the newspaper each day.

It's called the obit page.

Targeting those, um, readers, isn't a business plan, it's a suicide pact.

 

[HanSenSE]

Last summer,when we were on AP Limited, we had just the state baseball boxes. No complaints. But, when NFLstarted, and all we had were the Niners, Raiders and Chargers, people complained. Say what you want about the growing online culture and only old folks wanting to see them, but I'm convinced readers of all ages like having them in one place.

Cutting back local? After spring all-county, outside of the odd kidball tourney, all-star games, boxing/MMA at the casino and racing at the fairgrounds, we're counting the days until high school camps open!

 

[jr/shotglass]

I'd agree with you, but I appear to be deceased.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Last summer,when we were on AP Limited, we had just the state baseball boxes. No complaints. But, when NFLstarted, and all we had were the Niners, Raiders and Chargers, people complained. Say what you want about the growing online culture and only old folks wanting to see them, but I'm convinced readers of all ages like having them in one place.

You have conflated a discussion about MLB boxes (2,592 pieces of agate and game summaries scattered across seven months) with NFL agate (240 packed into about four months, almost all on Sunday). There is a material difference there.

 

[Den1983]

We stopped running boxes long ago. We fielded complaints for maybe a week or two - and not consistently - but they got over it. We would never cut local for agate, especially being a 16K hyper-local daily. I've had complaints with too much national and not enough local before.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

You could do it if you work in the middle of nowhere, but not in a competitive newspaper market. I think the age argument is a simplistic one to rationalize dropping something. To me it's not a question of how many people want the box scores or whether the space can better be used on something else -- it's a matter of avoiding looking like you're not a go-to sports section anymore, you're just some supplemental piece of crap.

 

[1HPGrad]

Debate depends on circ size. I spent the past 15 years at major metros with pro teams, and I'd push every bit of ordinary preps results/notebooks/gamers online before I'd get rid of baseball boxes or squeeze NFL coverage on Mondays. Boxes are a staple to the most loyal demographic we have. Different landscape for smaller papers covering 5-10 high schools compared with metros tracking 70-130. Obviously more general interest in pro sports in the major markets. If you're in a major market, you want to know when the next Derrick Rose is coming along, but there isn't much widespread interest in 8 cols of ordinary preps results every day.

 

[playthrough]

I'm a dinosaur.

I like looking at four box scores, the day's pitching matchups and the standings . . . only having to move my eyes a couple of millimeters.

On the web it's 14 clicks to accomplish all that.

Very true. I think it's one of the most basic parts of a printed sports section. We cover games and most of these games have box scores.

 

[DK]

it's a matter of avoiding looking like you're not a go-to sports section anymore, you're just some supplemental piece of crap.

The local rag I get is a supplemental piece of crap and it stopped running all boxes scores save for the state's one MLB team two years ago. I pretty much read it to read the local news that nobody else covers. I sure as hell don't read it for sports because I don't have kids and no longer work in sports or journalism period -- so I could give a **** less about preps, especially 20-inch stories with photos on spring sports preps that draw a crowd of 10. Part of that comes from covering one too many track meets, and the only thing that's worse than track is field (old joke). Part of that comes from growing up in a big-league baseball-crazy city where the paper would get killed for axing boxes.

I guess since I like baseball boxes...moreso because the team I grew up following all of a sudden got pretty good last year and I got really interested again...I'm dead as well. RIP me. Out.

 

[deskslave]

The puzzling thing in that survey, to me, is the 9 sports editors who say they have willingly cut their own local copy in order to continue running major league boxes. That seems unwise on several levels, not the least of which is discounting the value of stuff produced by their own local staffs.

There are a whole lot of places where an awful lot more people give a **** about Major League Baseball than give a **** about some prep soccer game or a guy who won a shooting contest two states over last week.