Football tabs

It is actually a huge hassle to change the rack price for one day, then change it back the next day.

For in-store sales, you'd have to have different bar codes for them to scan and have it ring up right.

While it was likely you'd make more money, the expense of doing a one-day change, would make it a break-even or a money-loser.

A better idea is put a price on it and sell it as a standalone product a day or two after it is inserted, then sell it for the couple, three weeks leading up to the season's start.

 

We're doing something similar -- called the "iTab" -- with an iPhone/iPad-looking cover with each team's logo looking like a home screen app and the page number below directing to each team page. Then Q&A with top players -- favorite emoji, favorite app, favorite social media site, favorite hashtag -- and "who to follow" for each team (two players). We're also giving each team an emoji that best describes the state of the program entering the season.

Good job with the web theme. Parents always read this stuff and kids will be more invested to read something that emulates their iPhone/Internet-based interests.

 

Well, I "won" that battle. The tab's going to be on Sept. 2. Only today was I told that the tab schedule for the year is usually determined in November. I said that if I had known that's how it works a long time ago, I wouldn't have these yearly fights with advertising.

 

For the first time, my boss and I had a conversation about doing away with a tab next year. The conversation came about because of some last-minute advertising drama caused by a family emergency that has since been resolved.

The tab at best breaks even on ads, and I've seen the rate card and think that's optimistic.

I think it's better to run team previews in the main sports section and give readers a reason to buy the paper every day in August, rather than to save it all for one day at the end of the month.

We're a small department and the tab takes 50% of us out of commission for a week or more. We could spread that work out over a month and feel a lot less burned-out before one down of football is played.

 

Why not just make it the same price as the Sunday edition? You can use the Sunday barcodes and just have the racks changed like they are for that one day.

 

This will be the first year we haven't done them, as well. In the past we have done separate ones for our county and the two adjacent counties with rosters, schedules, fact boxes and a short feature or vignettes on each team, depending on the theme. I enjoyed putting them together for the most part, but it's a hell of a lot of work. And it helps immensely when you have good art to work with..

Hey, find your own themes!

 

What our tab does is get mostly different advertising dollars into play. A lot of mom and pops in small communities will by a one-time ad supporting the local team in the football section. They won't buy that same space in the daily section.
Of course, we special section our regular advertisers to death. 56 page high school section. We start a four-page high school football wrap next week. And, we have the College Game Day tab that starts running each Saturday at the end of August.
For our high school section, we send out info sheets to the coaches in early July and we decide what type of art we need. We start working on it about two weeks before the season and we get about half of our art done before the first day of practice.

 

I say this only because we've tried the same, and it hasn't worked. But pushing themes onto your tab content is classic forcing the issue. I truly hope we don't ever try it again.

 

They're only willing to show support for the local team in the tab, but not in the regular paper even if you basically have the same content? It's not like they have to run an ad on the day another team's preview is running...

 

Our sports tab is one of the biggest things we do each year. I only have two high schools in my area so we include all of the fall sports. This year it's 56 pages and I (the SE) do all of the stories, take all of the pictures, do the graphics including the cover and individual headshots and bios for the football players. It comes out the Wednesday before the first football game and we sell them before the first home football game at the tailgate party that the paper puts on in the school's parking lot.

 

Burned out? Does your boss actually care about that? Sportswriters don't get burned out. They work every day eight or more hours a day in the toy factory. ... I digress. You make a good point about not putting it all in one section, to spread it out. You'll lose a lot of ad revenue though if those advertisers don't care about advertising in the paper on the one day the preview of the team they care about runs.

 

You were born digressing about that topic.