What makes football more important than all
the other news, business and sport put together?
94 minutes and Darren Bent celebrates Fulham's equaliser. Whatever would Sir Alex have said about the timing? Photograph: Eurosport
SubScribe audits the sports pagesThursday 13 February, 2014
Several years ago, Gameoldgirl had a bit of a run-in with the Times sports department when a strong cricket-based story broke late on a Sunday evening. Were we interested in taking it up front? Not the whole story, but we'd certainly take a short write-off, cross-reffing to the sport splash. 'Oh we won't be splashing on it.' 'Why?' 'Because we always splash on football.' 'But you've got 24 pages of The Game for football.' 'Yes, but we have to splash on the football.' 'Well, couldn't you split the page and do the picture on the footie and a text splash on cricket?' 'No. That's not the style. We give the whole page to football. But if you want to change the way we do things...' Gameoldgirl retreats in surrender. When the sportsman had disappeared back to his office, a former sports executive who now holds a senior position in news, leant across the desk and said: 'He's right, you know. We have to splash on the football whatever happens. And I much prefer cricket.' Another standing rule for a Sunday at the Times was that the front page puff had to be devoted to The Game and that it was not to be diluted with pointers to any other element of the paper. It was not unusual, either, for the main front-page picture to be football-related. Nor was this approach born from the whim of a particular editor - it was embraced by successive editors, deputies, night editors and sports executives not only at the Times, but at many other papers. This rigid philosophy has been tempered over the years, but football continues to dominate every section that claims to write about 'sport'. Of course football is big business, very big business. It's also soap opera, the main topic of conversation in the pub, at dinner parties - at any social event, in fact, where strangers seek common ground to make small talk or where friends and neighbours dramatise their rivalries. No one is doubting the very great interest in the game. Football coverage is such an essential selling point for newspapers that many of them have 16, 20 and 24-page supplements. So essential that Monday papers routinely devote more column inches to that one sport than to the entire home, foreign and business sections put together. Every stop is pulled out to ensure that every evening result is in the next day's first edition - and if a European game goes to extra time and penalties, a paper can be up to two hours late on the presses and they still won't start without the final score. If the front page is offstone ten minutes late on any other night, there's hell to pay. The approach is so standard that it must make commercial sense. There must be money to be made. So why do those must-read, must-puff football sections never have any advertisements in them? Subscribe doesn't have the answer, but we thought it would be interesting to do an audit of one day's sports coverage across the national papers to see how the valuable space is shared out. This weekend produced three big events: the Winter Olympics, the start of the Six Nations rugby and the British indoor athletics championships. There was also the usual football programme and the breaking story of the England and Wales Cricket Board explaining why it was washing its hands of the man who has scored more runs for England than any other player. BBC2 achieved an audience of up to 3m for Jenny Jones's snowboarding event in Sochi, and its Winter Olympics coverage had a bigger share of the all-day audience than ITV on both Saturday and Sunday. So people are interested. Match of the Day routinely attracts around 4m viewers. Radio5Live and its Sports Extra sister also have a growing audience - reaching more than 6.5m a week, according to quarterly ratings released last week. There will be few sports fans who woke up on Monday unaware of the tensions and last-minute dramas at Old Trafford. Of course this was the main football story of the day. Of course Moyes is under the microscope. The question here is whether sport in general is suffering from this level of coverage - and whether it bears any responsibility for the ludicrous turnover of football managers this season. Even in the miserable rain and wind, millions of people will have been out walking, running, jumping, climbing, swimming, pogo-jumping this weekend. Yet minority sports don't get a look in. We hear endlessly about the need for the nation to get fit. Yet our sports pages cater almost entirely for the armchair pundits who wear tracksuits for no reason other than to hide the blubber and catch the dribbled pizza. That is why SubScribe thinks the balance needs to be shifted. Here is the evidence from last weekend: |
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Yes, she does know what she's on about
Just in case you were thinking 'she's just a silly old woman who doesn't realise that football is more important than life and death...
As a teenager Gameoldgirl had footballers rather than pop stars on the bedroom wall. And it was the ambition to be a football writer that led to a career in journalism. News got in the way - but she still knows the offside rule. ...but she does
have form... 
The Knight of the Hairdryer is one of the most successful people in the country and clearly has great leadership skills.
He has a huge following of both admirers and detractors. But he is not the second Messiah, he is a football manager. He is 71 and he is retiring. He has not died - and even if he had, the national newspapers' response would still be over the top. Read more from SubScribe on Fergie's farewell here |
Monday's sports coverage in numbers
The Sun
Main book 11 of 60 pages Back page Splash Man U Picture Rooney Puffs 1 x Olympics 2 x football Inside pages 4 x football, 2 x Olympics, 2 x racing, 1 x rugby, 1 x Pietersen Goals supplement 28 pages Supplement advertising 2 20x3s, baseline strips on several pages, all for Wickes Total football space 33 of 88 pages (37%) 
Independent
Main book 16 of 56 pages Back page Splash Cricket Picture Bent (v Man U) Puffs 1 x Olympics 1 x football 1 x athletics Inside pages 5 x football, 4 x rugby, 2 x Olympics, 1 x athletics, 1 x Pietersen, 1 x opinion, 1 x results Advertising None Total football space 5.5 of 56 pages (10%) 
Guardian
Main book 0 of 34 pages Supplement 14 pages Cover Picture Olympics Splash Man U s/c on Pietersen Inside 6 x football, 2 x rugby 2 x racing 2 x Olympics, with cycling and athletics at the edges 1 x opinion Advertising 4 house ads Total football space 6.5 of 44 pages (15%) |
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Telegraph
Main book 0 of 30 pages Sport supplement 16 pages Cover Olympics Puffs 1 x rugby, 1 x Pietersen Inside pages 6 x rugby, 1 x opinion 4 x Olympics, with golf at edge 2 x racing, 1 x cricket 1 x athletics/equestrianism Total Football supplement 22 pages Sport advertising 1 10x7, 4 house ads Football advertising 1 page Total football space 22 of 68 pages (32%) 
Daily Star
Main book 11 of 52 pages Back page Splash Man U Picture Rooney Puffs 1 x football 1 x Olympics Inside pages 4 x football, 4 x racing, spread on Olympics and Pietersen with bit of rugby, golf and athletics Seriously Football pull-out 20 pages Supplement advertising "in association with Wickes" 1 x full page, 1 x half page, 1 20x3, 1 25x3, front page 10x5 Total football space 25 of 72 pages (35%) 
Mirror
Main book 11 of 52 pages Back page Splash Man U Picture Moyes s/c football Puffs football Inside 4 x football 2 x rugby, 2 x racing, 1 x Olympics, 1 x Pietersen Mirror Football supplement 20 pages Advertising "In association with Vauxhall" straplines, baseline strips, 2 x half-page, all Vauxhall Total football space 25 of 72 pages (35%) |
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Express
Main book 12 of 64 pages Back page Splash Man U Pictures: Bent, Moyes Write-offs Olympics, Pietersen, rugby Inside pages 6 x football, 2 x rugby 2 x Olympics, with Pietersen, athletics and boxing at edge 1 x racing Advertising 10x5 Sky, 25x3 Wickes, 15x2 betting, 3 house ads Total football space 7 of 64 pages (11%) 
The Times
Main book 12 of 64 pages Back page Splash Man U Picture Man U Puffs 1 x Olympics, 1 x rugby Inside pages 4 x Olympics,racing 4 x rugby, 1 x cricket, 1 x racing, 1 x opinion The Game supplement 20 pages Game advertising Sky Sports baseline strips, 3 house ads Total football space 21 of 84 pages (25%) 
Daily Mail
Main book 16 of 72 pages Back page Splash Man U Picture Rooney s/c story Pietersen Puff rugby Inside 7 x football, 3 x rugby, 2 x opinion 2 x Olympics, with Pietersen and Football Extra, 1 x racing Advertising Wickes 25x3, Sky Sports 10x5, Lloyds Pharmacy 15x2, 1 house ad Total football space 8 of 72 pages (11%) |
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i
Main book 10 of 56 pages 'Back page' Picture Bent (v Man U) Splash Sport Matrix roundup Inside pages 3 x football, 2 x Olympics, 1.5 x rugby, with golf and tennis, 1 x Pietersen, 0.5 racing, 1 athletics + results roundup Advertising 4 house ads Total football space 3.5 of 56 pages (6%) |
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