Football tabs

[BDC99]

While it sounds like a lot of work, I think this is great.

Maybe it's overkill but in general, when you know your readers are genuinely interested in something, you give it them and keep on giving it to them like an all-you-can-eat buffet. If that formula works for ESPN it can work for small newspapers as well.

If you're in a football hotbed, I would bet there are plenty of readers who will read all 50 inches of that preview and still want more.

Can't argue with this. Probably one of the most read things of the year, I would bet. 50 inches seems a bit excessive and unnecessary, but at least you're giving the readers something worthwhile.

 

[YorksArcades]

A 50-inch preview? Are you trying to outdo Wyatt Earp or something?

 

[Batman]

Contrary to many of the posts I've read where the tabs have been reduced or eliminated, ours has gone the other extreme and has grown to a 112-page square tab (magazine) with 90 percent color and we're a small (11,000 circulation) rural paper. My "staff" is myself and one full-time assistant plus one part-timer and we handle 12 high schools plus one local college and include not only 50-inch previews, but also complete roster/facts boxes, team color photos, individual spotlight photos, senior group shots, bands and cheerleaders. It is easily our paper's single largest money-maker of the year as well. Don't get me wrong, it completely beats me up for three weeks of 11-hour days, 7-days a week since I do 75 percent of the writing, 100 percent of the editing and 100 percent of the layout/design, but it is a quality product. Two of the neighboring papers pale in comparison - one is a 40-page tab and the other is a 14-page broadsheet. We also produce 40-page winter (boys/girls basketball, wrestling and swimming) and spring (baseball, sofball, boys/girls track) full color tabs as well.

Trolling? Gotta be trolling, or at the very least sarcastic, right?

 

[jr/shotglass]

I bet that's a helluva tab, JJH. Wish I had that kind of space.

 

[JJH56]

I bet that's a helluva tab, JJH. Wish I had that kind of space.

I have to admit it is a pretty solid product and is well-received not to mention the paper's biggest money-maker of the year...just wears me to the bone trying to put it all together practically single-handedly and trying to deal with day-to-day stuff too.
The biggest problem is fighting all of the schools (ADs, coaches, band directors, etc.) in putting together photo days because they never work out and I'm constantly rescheduling, reshuffling, etc.
That, plus they usually don't even finalize the layouts until about 4 days before the thing is to print, so putting out 112 pages in that amount of time (again, working around daily stuff) is taxing...lol.

 

[Batman]

So you really didn't mean to use the blue font, JJH?
If that's the case, how in the holy fork do you write a 50-inch preview story and make it readable? Much like Ron Burgundy finding out Baxter had eaten an entire wedge of cheese, I'm not even mad. I'm impressed.
I might write four or five 50-inch feature stories a year, and I've sometimes been accused of having word processor incontinence. How do you stretch out something as mundane as a preview story, even with a feature angle, to 50 inches and have anything worth a crap left in the hopper for the rest of the magazine? Having 50 inches of copy (which is two or three decent-sized stories) per school is reasonable, but 50 inches for the preview alone?
Do you just end up listing names in the story, like Cletus rattling off the roster of his kids?

 

[apeman33]

The tab printed Tuesday. Except that this year, it's not a tab. It's an eight-page B Section. Why? Because tabs cost more to produce due to the "changes you have to make to the press" (their words).

Eight pages. Not including the cover and agate page (last year's standings, this year's schedules, district assignments and the like), that's six full-size pages for two schools. And then the person who was supposed to drop the ads on the page was sick for three days, so I had to decide where all the ads (30 of them) went and put them on the pages myself. The only hard part was to make sure two businesses that sell similar things (two restaurants or two banks) didn't appear on the same page.

The tab was to print Tuesday night for Wednesday's paper. Except that the person selling the ads somehow thought the ads didn't need to be ready until Wednesday morning. The managing editor had to pitch in and learn how to download the ads from the hub over the phone.

Thanks to a few extra photos of star players, a story on the AstroTurf that's going down on the stadium field and a pair of stories previewing the two leagues the two schools appear in, the space got filled. But this was the worst experience I've ever had working on a tab.

I didn't have the pages to do any layout until noon on Monday but at least I already had four of the five main stories written. And, of course, doing the regular Monday sports stuff.

Any thanks for taking on some extra responsibility? No. Any "Hey, good jobs?" heck no.

 

[Doc Holliday]

We were talking around the office today about football previews. We haven't done them here since 2012, and I don't think any of the staff misses them.

When I first starting working in the industry last decade, four writers worked on the preview, three photographers took all pictures. The desk took care of all design/layout, and there were numerous salesmen who sold ads for it. In the last few years we produced it, I was one of two writers who had to do most of the work (it was 24 pages broadsheet). It was a major project to accomplish in about three weeks time, on top of all other normal duties. We had to write every article, take 80% of the pictures, and lay out the entire thing. The ad staff was also slashed over the years, and I think the last year we did the preview, there was only one guy selling it.

We now just do a preview a day in the sports section leading up to first Friday. It's much easier.

Who out there still does them? I'm sure plenty still do, but I can't think of any paper in our surrounding counties that does them. The area's major metro and the smaller papers all around us have stopped doing them in the last five years.

Are you complaining about having to work hard? If you don't like it, quit. Your 24 pages is nothing compared to the 56 pages I did on a two man staff. In fact, the four-man staff I work on now still puts out a 48 page football tab. We take all the pictures, write the stories, etc.

Big forking deal. Some of you guys are lazy as fork. I bet you make your girlfriend do all the work while you catch a few winks of shuteye.

 

[Doc Holliday]

The tab printed Tuesday. Except that this year, it's not a tab. It's an eight-page B Section. Why? Because tabs cost more to produce due to the "changes you have to make to the press" (their words).

Eight pages. Not including the cover and agate page (last year's standings, this year's schedules, district assignments and the like), that's six full-size pages for two schools. And then the person who was supposed to drop the ads on the page was sick for three days, so I had to decide where all the ads (30 of them) went and put them on the pages myself. The only hard part was to make sure two businesses that sell similar things (two restaurants or two banks) didn't appear on the same page.

The tab was to print Tuesday night for Wednesday's paper. Except that the person selling the ads somehow thought the ads didn't need to be ready until Wednesday morning. The managing editor had to pitch in and learn how to download the ads from the hub over the phone.

Thanks to a few extra photos of star players, a story on the AstroTurf that's going down on the stadium field and a pair of stories previewing the two leagues the two schools appear in, the space got filled. But this was the worst experience I've ever had working on a tab.

I didn't have the pages to do any layout until noon on Monday but at least I already had four of the five main stories written. And, of course, doing the regular Monday sports stuff.

Any thanks for taking on some extra responsibility? No. Any "Hey, good jobs?" heck no.

fork. You guys are some lazy forkers. Get used to this pal. This is how it is. Work your ass off or find another job. I've been doing this shirt for 25 years. You're either a lazy shirt or you're willing to work. Glad I don't work with you pansies. I'd kick your ass and then fire you.

 

[apeman33]

Bite me. I didn't say I wasn't willing to do hard work. I've been doing it for 20 years. What I was complaining about was how there were idiots in the company who seemed hellbent on making this year as difficult as possible.

Any other year, under normal circumstances, I'd have been proud of what I did. Work hard? fork you. I was in this office until 4:45 in the goddamned morning Tuesday.

 

[BDC99]

I was in this office until 4:45 in the goddamned morning Tuesday.

Doc stayed til 6:30. Pansy!

 

[SFIND]

Are you complaining about having to work hard? If you don't like it, quit. Your 24 pages is nothing compared to the 56 pages I did on a two man staff. In fact, the four-man staff I work on now still puts out a 48 page football tab. We take all the pictures, write the stories, etc.

Big forking deal. Some of you guys are lazy as fork. I bet you make your girlfriend do all the work while you catch a few winks of shuteye.

Did I write any complaints in the post? I described that I had to do more work on the preview before it was eliminated. No where did I say, "Wha, it was too much work!"

Go listen to Collin Cowherd and blow your steam at something else.