What's your Olympic coverage plan?

[huntsie]

Assuming you don't have correspondents, how do you plan to cover the Olympics from a time zone 12 hours ahead?
For us, it will be a page in our daily run -- the general roundup, a roundup from CP of how Canada did, with two columns of agate devoted to the medal table; and detailed Canadian agate results; with photo support of course.
We have a handful of locals attending -- three athletes with ties to the area; a former Olympic athlete who is a television commentator; two members of the mission support staff and a "non accreddited support personnel" guy travelling with the wrestling team.
We have features on the athletes running on the opening Saturday of the Games and a general roundup story mentioning all the locals and their roles.
Canadian medal winners will get play on the front of our section, and whatever human interest we have: parents of the Olympians, for example.
Anybody got anything unique going? Suggestions?
In your opinion, is this overkill given the time zone difference and the internet and television saturation, or is it worthy because it's The Olympics?
What's your paper doing?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I vote for the agate page.

 

[micropolitan guy]

A roundup story every day, and updates on the athletes with local ties who are competing.

It's college FB time. The Olympics don't hold a candle to that for our readers' interests, especially Olympics that are more than half a day ahead of our publication schedule.

 

[EE94]

A roundup story every day, and updates on the athletes with local ties who are competing.

It's college FB time. The Olympics don't hold a candle to that for our readers' interests, especially Olympics that are more than half a day ahead of our publication schedule.

That's a pretty xenophobic approach
I don't suggest you devote pages and pages to the Olympics, but the Olympics are a fairly significant sporting event and do attract a wider audience - including more females.
People also are attracted by the nationalism the Games tend to inspire
You might want to consider that before you salivate over the daily musings of a monosyllabic tailback or some such

 

[hondo]

A roundup story every day, and updates on the athletes with local ties who are competing.

It's college FB time. The Olympics don't hold a candle to that for our readers' interests, especially Olympics that are more than half a day ahead of our publication schedule.

That's a pretty xenophobic approach
I don't suggest you devote pages and pages to the Olympics, but the Olympics are a fairly significant sporting event and do attract a wider audience - including more females.
People also are attracted by the nationalism the Games tend to inspire
You might want to consider that before you salivate over the daily musings of a monosyllabic tailback or some such

Women watch the gymnastics and swimming. That's it. Men watch basketball and track. No one gives a rat's ass about single sculls or bicyling.

 

[spnited]

A roundup story every day, and updates on the athletes with local ties who are competing.

It's college FB time. The Olympics don't hold a candle to that for our readers' interests, especially Olympics that are more than half a day ahead of our publication schedule.

August 8 is college football time?

 

[MCbamr]

In some parts of the country March 7, June 12 and any other day of the year is college football time. HOWEVER, I think interest in the Olympics is more universal, or at least it was before cable TV and the internet splintered our lives so much. I agree that the nationalism aspect is a factor.

 

[sportschick]

Not set in stone yet, but I think the current plan is to use the back page for agate, a roundup and a feature -- probably previewing an event that will be televised the next day.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

It will be based on page counts.

On Tuesday, our lightest section, we'll go with a briefs package on agate. On a Sunday, we might devote a full page to it with one feature and a lot of briefs.

 

[buckweaver]

Women watch the gymnastics and swimming. That's it. Men watch basketball and track. No one gives a rat's ass about single sculls or bicyling.

The resident USWNT soccer fan in my house says **** off. :

And frankly, I'm more interested in the Phelps story (swimming) than I am the basketball. Chip, chip, chipping away at your theory.

 

[BigSleeper]

I vote for the agate page.

Seconded.

 

[sportschick]

Women watch the gymnastics and swimming. That's it. Men watch basketball and track. No one gives a rat's ass about single sculls or bicyling.

The resident USWNT soccer fan in my house says **** off. :

And frankly, I'm more interested in the Phelps story (swimming) than I am the basketball. Chip, chip, chipping away at your theory.

Phelps fascinates me. I've always watched as much of the Olympics as possible. Knowing kayakers and crew folks as well as few cyclists, I even watch the events that apparently noone else does.

 

[PaperDoll]

I believe we're going to have a template-style page of Olympics content every day. Given that we have exactly one local competitor (two, if you want to stretch) and he's not exactly in a glamour event, I don't know how we'll fill the space.

I asked the federation PR guy to have him call after his competition, and I suspect that'll happen since he's already arranged two phone interviews from China. Beyond that, it'll likely be all wire.

I think that's what we did four years ago as well.

I'll be watching a lot of tape-delayed NBC, plus a steady dose of whatever live Webcasts I can find. But I'm a rare Olympics nut.

 

[SF_Express]

A roundup story every day, and updates on the athletes with local ties who are competing.

It's college FB time. The Olympics don't hold a candle to that for our readers' interests, especially Olympics that are more than half a day ahead of our publication schedule.

That's a pretty xenophobic approach
I don't suggest you devote pages and pages to the Olympics, but the Olympics are a fairly significant sporting event and do attract a wider audience - including more females.
People also are attracted by the nationalism the Games tend to inspire
You might want to consider that before you salivate over the daily musings of a monosyllabic tailback or some such

We have no space issues and can do this however we want -- and I can tell you that our decision is that football, both college and pro, will be much bigger at this place than the Olympics will be.

The Games are huge for NBC and their associated websites. They're still important to us, but they won't be taking over the site, that's for sure. Too many other things our readers/users are more universally interested in.

 

[buckweaver]

Knowing kayakers and crew folks as well as few cyclists, I even watch the events that apparently noone else does.

Well, since I have an intimate knowledge of the kayaking competition and venue from the Atlanta games, I'm always interested in that, too.

 

[Gomer]

Up here there's not nearly the same interest in football, so we'll give the Olympics pretty good play. Probably a page, maybe two a day. However, we've got two pretty massive sporting events in our city during the Olympics which will take precedence. Might just be a page, with pretty much the same sort of content Huntsie describes.

 

[micropolitan guy]

That's a pretty xenophobic approach

Perhaps. But that's the way we'll play it. And besides, the tailback has a chance to be one of the more intriguing stories at Microville Tech this fall.

 

[EE94]

That's a pretty xenophobic approach

Perhaps. But that's the way we'll play it. And besides, the tailback has a chance to be one of the more intriguing stories at Microville Tech this fall.

I doubt that, but your point about stories is a good one.
Any Olympic Games is full of them, be they from Microville or some other part of the world that the residents of Microville spend their lives trying not to pay attention to
They make for interesting reading, but ****, why give that to your readers when you can document every drop of sweat off tailback's nose
I bet he even passed basketweaving last semester

 

[UPChip]

We're lucky in that, as a PM with a 9:15 last page deadline, we'll be able to beat our local NBC affiliate to many of the results. HS football in our area is down to six teams, so, when we're not putting together fall sports previews (you've not lived until you've written a Class D girls' volleyball season preview), we ought to have some space for stuff, provided the publisher's current war on wire copy doesn't escalate any further.

 

[calibretto]

A roundup story every day, and updates on the athletes with local ties who are competing.

It's college FB time. The Olympics don't hold a candle to that for our readers' interests, especially Olympics that are more than half a day ahead of our publication schedule.

That's a pretty xenophobic approach
I don't suggest you devote pages and pages to the Olympics, but the Olympics are a fairly significant sporting event and do attract a wider audience - including more females.
People also are attracted by the nationalism the Games tend to inspire
You might want to consider that before you salivate over the daily musings of a monosyllabic tailback or some such

Women watch the gymnastics and swimming. That's it. Men watch basketball and track (and women's beach volleyball). No one gives a rat's ass about single sculls or bicyling.