Monday, August 06, 2007

Must Read Article on Soccer Newspaper/TV Coverage

Sports Business Daily - What Top Sports News Outlets Covered During May

Very interesting stuff. It takes a look at three newspapers (LA Times, NY Times, USA Today) and two tv shows (Sportscenter, Final Score) and has a detailed list of how much each sport was covered.

MLS received an average of 0.52% of the coverage:

LA Times 1.27%
NY Times 0.30%
USA Today 0.86%


Final Score 0.16%
Sportscenter 0.02%


"Soccer General" received an average of 0.33% of the coverage:

LA Times 0.36%
NY Times 0.29%
USA Today 0.13%


Final Score 0.16%
Sportscenter 0.71%


Finally, "International Soccer" received an average of 0.74% of the coverage:

LA Times 1.06%
NY Times 1.19%
USA Today 0.66%


Final Score
0.53%
Sportscenter 0.24%


Combined totals:

LA Times 2.69%
NY Times 1.78%
USA Today 1.65%


Final Score 0.85%
Sportscenter 0.97%

So that means overall, soccer received less than 2% combined (1.59%) of the coverage from these five sources in May. Certainly that would be slightly higher in the past two months due to the Gold Cup, Copa America, and David Beckham's arrival. However it's still pretty sad.

Almost half that coverage was for international soccer, which at least half of probably doesn't involve Americans. It is encouraging to see the newspapers' coverage, but the tv coverage has a ways to go.

Comments on "Must Read Article on Soccer Newspaper/TV Coverage"

 

Blogger Kinney said ... (8:44 AM, August 07, 2007) : 

I really would have liked to see how the Washington Post compared to the papers in the study. I wonder why it wasn't included? I think it does the best job in the nation at covering MLS.

 

Blogger Ross Houston said ... (1:53 PM, August 08, 2007) : 

Did you see the "International Soccer" category? There were 3 soccer categories in that list and you only mentioned 2. Not that it makes the numbers skyrocket or anything. :-)

 

Blogger scaryice said ... (7:03 PM, August 08, 2007) : 

Forgot to add that part, thanks.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (8:37 PM, August 08, 2007) : 

Would like to see the numbers for June, or for April.

The only reason international soccer scored as high as it did is because the end of the season for most leagues is in May. This doesn't bode well for the other months and soccer.

Basketball and Hockey end in June?

Baseball began in March/April.

Thx,

Jay!

 

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