The Future of the Sports Page
Our students in Merrill College’s Fall Sports Reporting class were asked to describe the sports page of the future as part of their final in December 2014. We were so impressed with their answers we decided to compile them here.
Our students did create their own website for class which you can see here.
Please create the sports section for the year 2020, as a combination online/mobile/print effort. What would it include, not include, how would it be designed, who would be featured? Think future. The form? How many reporters Editors? Visuals? Think outside the box.
In 2020, I am doing nearly everything either online or on mobile. I would include a lot of graphics, interactives and blurbs. Whether we like it or not, people want to click on the interactives and see visuals more than reading a 1,000 word news piece. I am still including long pieces because features and investigative work are so important. However, within those long pieces there are going to be visuals and interactives. You have to keep readers engaged. I want 10 reporters who are skilled in a variety of areas – newswriting, blogs, visuals, video, etc. in this day and age, you have to be able to do it all. I would also have a graphics/visual editor and editor for written content.
The sports section in 2020 won’t feature the traditional game story. Instead, when a reader clicks on the recap of the game, they will be brought to a page that features a quick sentence describing the score. From there, the story will be told through short videos of the important plays that won the game. In a baseball story, it might feature a couple of home runs, a diving catch and the final out. At the bottom, there will be a few bullet points describing what the key players did during the game. This will translate well to mobile as well. Short, fun stories like you might see on For the Win or SB Nation today will be featured on the site.
There will be a section for longer feature stories, but these will also include multimedia elements such as pictures, charts and videos. There will be about the same number of reporters, but the number of editors will be down because the decrease in the amount of writing per story. Also, there will be a slight increase in the number of multimedia reporters, although all “normal” reporters will be expected to have a strong multimedia knowledge as well.
The biggest challenge facing the sports section of the future isn’t how content will be distributed, but what the content will be. We need to give the consumer something that couldn’t have been observed while watching the game on the 80 inch super ultra high definition television. So there has to be more content that goes into how what happened on the field came to be. There should be more interviews with players and coaches talking about how that one play came together. There should be more statistical analysis showing how the game was won.
A lot of this coverage would work really well, maybe even best, on mobile. I’ll use football as an example. Minutes after a touchdown or other type of big play, consumers and fans should be able to see content on their phone, which almost all of them are glancing at during a game, that shows how the play happened. Diagram it. Show how the defense was playing and how the offense attacked the defense. Show how exactly the defender messed up in coverage or the quarterback made a great throw. Also, there’s an opportunity to put states out there as the game happens. A lot of broadcasts are designed to keep casual fans interested in the game. Have instant phone notifications that have more advanced stats. In baseball, what matchups out of the bullpen make the most sense? What pitches does the hitter do well against and what does he do poorly against? Show me a diagram of where the hitter tends to hit the ball and how the defense should be set up to prevent a hit. This can happen nearly instantaneously.
There should also be more pieces that make the reader care about the players, and more content that makes the reader feel like he’s doing more than just rooting for laundry. As much as possible, tell me who the players that I root for are and why I should care about their success or failure. But there’s a challenge in how people get their content. Not many people have the patience to read a profile of a player on their phone. That’s the type of content that should be pushed on print and desktop formats.
To carry all this out, you need a diverse and competent staff. You need reporters at the games to talk to players and update information. You need video producers and computer programmers to create graphics and videos and all the mobile content. And you need smart, capable editors who can keep track of the whole operation and make sure that everyone is working on what they should be working on.
For a sports section in the year 2020, I would focus my content on mainly mobile and online content and only print occasionally throughout the week. Since many companies today such as the AP are being driven by online video content, I would include a combination of video and written pieces. I would have reporters and editors that are equipped in web design and video editing as well as publishing traditional stories. I think it’s important to continue to feature athletes because that is who the public is most interested in, but also have reporters who can feature creative and unique story ideas from around the country and world.
A future newsroom would need twice the amount of online staff and three times as many people in the mobile department. The print section would be gone, as I believe most will be. There won’t be any gamers, just bullet points and a storify-type element. The amount of text and the size of something like a “by the numbers” box would be flip flopped. Everything would have to be short and visually pleasing.
They key to all of that remaining journalism is making sure there are enough editors. There won’t be any need for page designers or printers, and all of that money should first address getting editors who know what they are doing and can run a publication. The trick would be becoming a digital age organization, but with old school values.
The sports section of 2020 would include a link to a box score, but not the old print version of it, rather something with more kinds of statistics and more in-depth statistics as technology and the sabermetrics movement have made it easier to look at stats and look at them more closely. It would not feature a game story or at least nothing beyond a very basic summary, probably written by automated programs instead of actual writers. It would feature beat stories and more, which would actually pick up much of the detail and color formerly present in game stories and more charts and photo galleries. More of the important details would be featured up front in an effort to prevent people from losing interest before they get to the heart of the story. It would be designed in different ways for different formats with the mobile format taking priority and it would involve fewer reporters, likely no more than two or three each for the larger sports and much less for everything else.
The sports section in the year 2020 would be a revamped, new age twist on the sports pages of today. For starters, the print component would be minimal, as the industry has shifted away from this form already. In six years time, even fewer people will be consuming their sports news through newspapers. In my model, I would include only major headlines and ledes in the paper along with photos. After the lede, I would include a jump that would notify readers to go online to view the rest of the story. The online component would take on a minimalist approach something similar to Grantland and the Baltimore Sun I would utilize black and white space in order to make text jump out to the reader and keep them more engaged.
I will also make photos and text more interactive and include links to other pieces and sidebars within the story. The online component will make ads a miniscule presence on the site so that readers are distracted by pesky pop-ups.
I would hire a staff of three or four reporters to cover each major college and professional sport and one editor for each sport as well. In terms of usability, I would make the online and mobile versions adaptable to the user’s exact preferences and specifications. I would give readers the option of only viewing the sports they are interested in and writers they like the most. For example, if a reader only wants to follow college basketball, then they would be able to focus solely on that and other content would be wiped away. If readers change their mind, all of the other content would reappear.
Lastly, the mobile component would be similar to Dan Shanoff’s idea [from class]. I would go for notifications that pop up on the user’s phone whenever a major event occurs in sports. The lede will flash across the screen if the user clicks on it, they will be told to view the rest of the story online. Writing for mobile will become increasingly difficult as mobile technology keeps advancing so brief notifications will be the most effective use for mobile users.
As for the design, I think it would have to be pleasing to the eye (soft-toned colors) and minimalistic – several old school web pages feature tacky colors and include too much visual material which is distracting readers away from articles. The texts should stand out but not too strongly – there should be a good balance between the text what is around it. I believe internet browsers will still exist, but there will be much bigger emphasis on how things look on smartphones. For that purpose, I think the section should be touch-friendly. For instance, people should be able to swipe the blocks (containing the articles) around on the interface to prioritize what they want to read first or what they do not want to read at all.
For the content, I think writers can produce a full-length articles as they do in the present, but there should be an option for people to choose to read in certain length. For instance, some may be done after reading a short 100-word summary. Some way want to read more about it and digest the entire 1,000 word article – a story should be able to offer both. And for that, there should be an editorial job that takes the final draft and produces different versions based on certain lengths.
Depending on the advancement of the algorithm in computer technology, articles could be “written” with the compilation of words aggregated from what is posted on social media. The idea is to scan a subject based on a hashtag or subject matter and automatically construct few paragraphs and have the editors look over, fact check, and edit it out
BRIAN MARRON
In the year 2020, print media would be even more destitute than it has now become. Thus, I would do away with daily sports newspapers and implement a bi-monthly sports newspaper/magazine for subscribers that showcase more feature and column content that is suitable for deeper readers and older audience members. This would cut production and transportation costs while still providing a traditional medium for sports news.
Next, my website would be a mix of hard news stories and beat coverage like any other news media site, but I would implement a Deadspin-like blog section as another section of the site, similar to how USA Today uses For the Win. This blog would attract a younger audience and give the orientation that my sports section is still fun and can have a sense of humor.
Lastly, I would use a lot of my resources to create a mobile-friendly site. This way, readers can get alerts on breaking news while on the go and can still reader beat coverage of their favorite teams while on their lunch break or on their commutes. Overall, my section would probably employ about 30 to 40 reporters and writers.
SAM MILTON
My sports section for the year 2020 would include a multitude of video content that would replace game stories and serve primarily as the source of game recaps, notable highlights and in depth broadcast reporting. Videos will grab the attention of readers more so than writing by 2020, but I would still keep columnists writing for the section to allow for diversity in content and to maintain integrity of journalistic writing. The site would ideally be colorful and eye catching, and forward thinking reporters and editors would be in high demand.
Overall, my sports section in 2020 would emphasize video content to enhance clicks and popularity while maintaining columnists to preserve written journalism and balance out the section.
I believe that in 2020 the demand for immediacy will be even greater than it is today. People will literally have the news as it happens. As such, the need for game stories and news coverage in newspapers will be nearly non-existent. I think the future of newspapers should include: the biggest story of the day, a rundown of a bunch of less significant stories (grouped by topic/league) and the remaining space should be used for more longform pieces, investigative stories, features, profiles, etc. that are less time sensitive.
I agree with Dan Shanoff that we must work to design content for mobile first because if it works on your phone it will work on the web, but not necessarily the other way around.
I think these online platforms will be where game stories, columns and quick news are reported. Each story must be accompanied by at least two multi-media elements – video, photo, graphic, map, timeline, etc. but they must engage readers. I also think there should be a subsection for each team/reporter so they can upload blog posts and social media updates in an organized fashion. I think the overall size of the staff would likely be about the same, they would just be working in a new way on new platforms. I think the only major change, staff wise, would be more employees working on the visual side of things to produce elements for the web.
ALEX STOLLER
My sports section would be strictly digital, only including online and mobile components. Because the gamer is fading out of the sports reporting scene, my stories would look at the greater picture. There would be stories about people, as Bill Nack advised. The stories would feature the issues in present day sports and connect them to the culture.
Statistics and scores would have their own tab. Here you could search a team and all game highlights and major plays would show up in a bulleted format that is quick and easy to read. Each major play would have a multimedia component with it like a video or gif. The team’s Twitter account would also scroll.
Other tabs would cover the news of each sport. Giving each sport its own section would allow readers to access the information they are looking for as quickly as possible. Each story would have key words and phrases bolded to help readers get the important parts of the story No story would exceed 500 words in length, preferably shorter. All stories would have a bulleted, concise summary at the beginning
There would be a tab for profiles. Each day an athlete (college, professional or high school) would be profiled. These profiles would again be no more than 500 words longs to ensure readability. My final tab would be similar to USA Today’s “For the Win.” It would be a collection of funny videos, tweets, gifs and photos that show the fun news in sports.
My section would have a relatively small staff. I would hire people who are good at what they do and who have a sense of the changes the journalism world is undergoing I would hire mostly multimedia reporters who have experience capturing visuals on the spot. I would also hire a graphic designer or two to create strong visuals that capture a reader’s attention. My site would be clean and organized with more visual content than words.
RAE WILLIAMS
I think a 2020 sports section would be heavily driven by user preferences. I do think that everything will be online or mobile by then and we will be able to more specifically streamline our content to our interests as well as request the kinds of stories we want to see and hear. I think we will still have a great deal of reporters and editors because as much as most outlets today are trying to incorporate video, there will never be a replacement for the written word. I do think interactivity will be key though. The ability to click a play and see who has made that play most recently throughout history – that would take a great deal of reporting.
