Global Sports Reporting

I chose to compare the sports section of The Denver Post, published in my home town of Denver Colorado (http://www.denverpost.com/sports), and The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport), which is published in the UK.  The setup and layout of the two online periodicals were very similar, although The Guardian has a general sports page which includes top stories such as Djokovic's win over Nadal in the Australian Open.  In addition to the primary sports page on the Guardian there is also a tab specifically for US Sports that includes sub categories for NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA, NHL, and NCAA.  Opposed to a main story to catch your attention on the US Sports page there are sections that include Top Story, Most Recent, Video Highlights, Useful Links, & Blogs.  There are also ESPN and Sports Illustrated links available.  The US Sport and the main Guardian sports page have one advertisement at the top and one to two towards the bottom.  It is a very clean setup, not cluttered by a lot of flashing advertisements like many of the American websites.  Rightfully so there are a number of futbol stories that are covered on the front page, and I was able to find a short story about the upcoming Super Bowl after clicking through various pages.  There is also a tab that covers the the 2012 Olympics.  Readers are able to read about the qualifying and recaps of all of the events as well as predictions.

Unlike The Guardian, The Denver Post is full of various advertisers on their page that are flashing and moving all over the page, I guess that is the American way.  I counted 15 advertisements on on the first page of The Post website before I even started reading various stories.  Currently, the 2012 X games are taking place in beautiful Aspen, Colorado!  Most of the highlighted stories on the first page that included pictures from recaps of the X games.  There is also a large photo of Tim Tebow that includes a link to purchase his book (Will to Win: How Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos turned 2011 into a season to Remember.  Other links include college sports recaps, box scores, and columnists such as one of my favorites Woody Paige.  Optional page tabs include 27 options opposed to only 6 option on The Guardian.  These options include local professional sports, high school, college, youth sports.  Some of the categories include activities that popular due to the location, such as skiing and snow sports. Surprisingly, I did not find any articles mentioning the super Bowl, although there was a small piece on it in the UK periodical.

I think both periodicals had in depth coverage for their respective target markets.  The Guardian had primary stories that covered a lot of futbol and rugby while The Post covered the X games, Tim Tebow, and snow sports.  There is a clear difference in the amount of ads that were posted from one sigh to the other.  The Post has advertisements all over the page that flashing and moving, while The Guardian had an ad at the top and one at the bottom.  The overall setup and layout are fairly similar.  Each site included their respective social media outlets.  Outside of the actual sports chosen sports that were targeted to their region the general formats were not far apart.  I enjoyed this assignment, it was interesting to compare the two and to learn about some sports I would not have read about in my usual reading.