Now that England appears to be leading the pack with some of the best club teams in Europe, it’s time the country gets with the times and does something that the Spanish, French and Italians have mastered for some time. That’s publishing a daily sports newspaper with an emphasis on football.
Incredibly, despite the popularity of the game in England reaching or surpassing the heights of organized religion, there’s no national newspaper focused just on sports. Spanish residents can choose from daily sports newspapers such as Marca and Diario AS. Italians can pick up the pink pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport, while the French can leaf through L’E'quipe.
In Britain, the broadsheet and tabloid newspapers do an admirable job of keeping up with the news both in print and online. Some of the papers feature expanded football sections such as “The Game” supplement from The Times. Published on Mondays, it provides in-depth coverage and interviews from the past weekend’s matches and offers an excellent glimpse of what a daily sports newspaper could be.
Some may argue that the daily British newspapers do a sufficient job of detailing the football news. I disagree. There’s definitely room for improvement especially in the area of more in-depth analysis of games with a need for more of a focus on tactical analysis. There’s also an opportunity to do more investigative journalism to uncover the stories that aren’t being told.
It could be argued that there’s no place for a daily sports newspaper in England when you have Sky Sports News covering the stories. Again, I disagree. While Sky Sports does an excellent job at reporting news, they only scratch the surface and provide small clips of news. There are so many heartfelt stories that never get the attention they deserve. Plus, the format of Sky Sports News has become entirely too predictable. Think back over the past few weeks and count how many stories Sky Sports News showed that (a) either surprised you or (b) made you learn something new about the game of football that you never knew before.
While the Internet has forever changed football journalism in England (as well as the interaction between readers and reporters), the web is not the most suitable medium to read in-depth articles that are very lengthy. For example, when surfing the web, how often do you print out lengthy articles to read on paper instead?
With more than 10 national daily newspapers in England, there’s plenty of demand for news. It’s my belief that there’s also plenty of room for a daily sports paper. Let’s see if it happens.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Sanjay // Apr 16, 2008 at 7:59 am
Gaffer, great points and I agree with you. Just wanted to add, for Italian soccer fans out there, La Gazetta Dello Sport now has an english langugae website out there. http://english.gazzetta.it/
This is the best place for everything to do with Italian football.
2 A sports daily in the UK? Not likely « Fighting Talker // Apr 16, 2008 at 8:25 am
[…] 16, 2008 · No Comments EPL Talk says the time is right for a daily sports newspaper in the UK. That’s a reasonable […]
3 Simon Burke // Apr 16, 2008 at 9:43 am
Not a bad idea but one thing I like about England is variety - if it all comes from say one source - we’ll call it “The Daily Footie” then you have a monopoly - who will it be geared to? Sun readers or those who like a bit more meat in their analysis.
By having so much footy in national newspapers and a variety of different journos spread about those papers - ie) Kevin McCarra at the Guardian, Henry Winter at the Telegraph, Oliver Holt at the Mirror etc.. you get a good variety and can tailor your newspaper to your taste.
A lot of Brits like their sport but some of us like to have some politics/entertainment and the like in the papers too.
I dont want a mimic of the Spanish papers some of which owned by the clubs themselves who then write all the transfer lies they want for 6 months (Henry to Barcelona) ran for 2 years!
4 Pep // Apr 16, 2008 at 9:56 am
I dont think having a daily sports paper and still reading the sports news out of established papers has to be be mutually exclusive. I am sure there is a market for both.
Good story
5 BillE Shears // Apr 16, 2008 at 10:19 am
Given the state of advertising in print, I just don’t see a daily sports newspaper being viable financially in the UK or anywhere, however desirable that might be. So many people can access a greater breadth of information on the Internet that it’s hard to see them paying for in print.
I agree that larger feature articles are a better read off-line, but perhaps that would be better served in a magazine.
6 TT // Apr 16, 2008 at 10:46 am
Whatever happened to the Sunday Sport, was there also a Daily Sport?
7 kevino // Apr 16, 2008 at 11:39 am
shhhh, instead of critizing why not start one
I know I know I’m being naive it takes a huge financial investment to get started .
the Talk banner can grow
8 101 Great Goals - latest football videos and international soccer goals from the Premier League, Champions League, La liga, Serie A, World Cup, UEFA Cup & more » Blog Archive » Yet more mud slinging at Anfield // Apr 17, 2008 at 2:53 am
[…] The Gaffer on EPL Talk calls for a British daily sports paper. “Now that England appears to be leading the pack with some of the best club teams in Europe, it’s time the country gets with the times and does something that the Spanish, French and Italians have mastered for some time. That’s publishing a daily sports newspaper with an emphasis on football.” […]
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