WaPo's special extreme sports section

Anybody check this out today? The print edition had hardly any advertising: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/2006/extreme_sports/front.htm

 

"Dude, it was so epic. It was totally rad."

Nice little section, especially since Sports Illustrated canned its monthly adventure section (and sent all those who subscribed to that section Golf Plus instead). Any news on how often The Post will publish this little side project?

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether increasing extreme sports coverage is actually a way to increase readership? As an old person (35) who's never watched five consecutive seconds of the X Games, I can't imagine that their popularity goes beyond teen-age skateboard punks who would sooner use a newspaper for padding than read it.

Is this something we need to start devoting precious space to?

 

A more effective use of their time would be to make video clips of X-sports (and/or interviews) instead of writing stories. The people interested in this stuff aren't wasting their time, sitting down to read this stuff. They want quick-hitting, hard-hitting, attention-grabbing "stories," especially online, especially something they can share with their friends immediately. That means video clips -- not 25-inch features.

You've got to play into the ADD culture a little bit to get their attention. That's a fine line for those in the newspaper business, whose current model demands patience to tell the stories they need to tell.

But you've got to have the audience before you can get them to listen to your stories. And we're losing the audience.