Have any other sports fans on here noticed that Saturday's "Richmond Times Dispatch" newspaper completely ignored Friday's high school football for the first time?! It could only be found on their website, and only an average amount there!
This says something about the state of the newspaper industry.
Comment by nkscouting — September 8, 2009 @ 12:28 am
The amount of coverage given to high school sports has dwindled dramatically. I've made it a habit to save clippings over the years, giving me something by which to compare. The number and amount of space devoted to high school sports articles is probably less than 33% of what it was just fifteen years ago. This seems to be true across the state. During the high school football season, the Roanoke Times used to have a comprehensive list of all the statewide scores in its Sunday edition. No longer. This practice, too, seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Those score lists have been absent thus far this season (unless I missed it somehow after week one; I'm certain it wasn't in this past Sunday's paper).
You see, if the local media devoted the amount of air time and print space that they used to devote to high school sports, that would take precious coverage away from that most sacred of cows: Virginia Tech. The coverage formula seems to be this: 65% VT sports (of that 65%, 80% is given to VT football); 25% NASCAR; and, the remaining 10% is split up among all the other sports in the world. "Pandering to the masses", I believe is the term.
Comment by Spartan80 — September 10, 2009 @ 3:08 am
The Press Box blog will post entries on a variety of sports at both the high school and collegiate levels in Southwest Virginia. Contributions come from staff writers of The Roanoke Times sports section.
Have any other sports fans on here noticed that Saturday's "Richmond Times Dispatch" newspaper completely ignored Friday's high school football for the first time?! It could only be found on their website, and only an average amount there!
This says something about the state of the newspaper industry.
Comment by nkscouting — September 8, 2009 @ 12:28 am
The amount of coverage given to high school sports has dwindled dramatically. I've made it a habit to save clippings over the years, giving me something by which to compare. The number and amount of space devoted to high school sports articles is probably less than 33% of what it was just fifteen years ago. This seems to be true across the state. During the high school football season, the Roanoke Times used to have a comprehensive list of all the statewide scores in its Sunday edition. No longer. This practice, too, seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Those score lists have been absent thus far this season (unless I missed it somehow after week one; I'm certain it wasn't in this past Sunday's paper).
You see, if the local media devoted the amount of air time and print space that they used to devote to high school sports, that would take precious coverage away from that most sacred of cows: Virginia Tech. The coverage formula seems to be this: 65% VT sports (of that 65%, 80% is given to VT football); 25% NASCAR; and, the remaining 10% is split up among all the other sports in the world. "Pandering to the masses", I believe is the term.
Comment by Spartan80 — September 10, 2009 @ 3:08 am