The Dallas Morning News and The Liverpool Post: Comparison

Super  Bowl XLV tackles Big D

This blog takes a look at the similarities and differences in the sports coverage of two English speaking newspaper websites: The Dallas Morning News and The Liverpool Post (England). 





Both websites are very simple to navigate and to understand.  Everything is spelled out and both have a lot of pictures.  The similarities stop there, however, as the content covered is much different.  The Dallas Morning News(TDMN) focuses heavily on the Super Bowl that will be taking over the city this entire upcoming week.  There are breakdowns of the game, articles on prior Super Bowls,  suggestions as how to get last minute tickets, and tips to navigate the heavier than usual traffic that is to be expected.  There is even a countdown to the SB ticker on the front page of the sports section.  TDMN also has coverage from last night's Mavericks and Stars games, an article on TCU's football recruiting, an update on the off season moves of the Texas Rangers, and a poll that shows that Cowboy fans are still in favor of owner Jerry Jones.  By and large, TDMN focuses on the four major North American sports of football, hockey, baseball, and basketball.  Its links are to the Cowboys, Mavericks, Rangers, Stars, high schools, colleges, and the Super Bowl.

The Liverpool Post focuses very heavily on football(soccer). Liverpool's local team, The Tranmere Rovers, is covered extensively.  There is a link to the Rover articles, but there is also a Rovers column with five article links right on the front page of the website.  The Rovers appear to be the sports lifeline for Liverpool sports fans.  Horse racing is also a primary sports news focal point.  There are a handful of horse racing article links right on the front page.  There is also Australian Open coverage as Englishman Andy Murray put forth a disappointing performance versus Novak Djokavic in the final this morning.  Also on the website is some minimal coverage on rugby, golf and boxing.

There are also differences in the types of advertisements on the respective pages.  The Dallas Morning News has a big banner promoting Doubleday Book Club.  Its advertisements include ones for iPhone, Walmart and Cialis.  The Liverpool Post hits the reader with pop ups when links are clicked on.  There is a pop up ad for a bar and one for cruise deals.  The ads on the sports homepage are for a camera and one for a sports gambling website.

In doing this comparison, I was a little surprised at how similar the sports pages are setup wise.  I was able to navigate the Liverpool Post just as easily as I did TDMN or any other sports newspaper site i have used.  I was even more surprised at how different the content is.  The sports coverage in England are only covered sparingly in Dallas and vice versa.  It is almost as though the word "sports" in the United States has a completely different meaning in the two countries other than the competitive aspect.



England's own Andy Murray was no match for Novak Djokavic in the finals of the Australian Open this morning, losing in straight sets



TCU, which will join the Big East in 2012, has become a national powerhouse in college football

I follow some of the sports covered in Liverpool.  In fact, I stayed up till 6 am EST watching the Australian Open Final this morning so it was cool to see it covered in such depth on the Post's site.  When I was watching it through the night on ESPN2, I felt as though I was the only one who knew it was going on.  It was surreal to find out how big it was to millions of people 'across the pond'.

Farewell Dandy Don

The pro football world lost someone who played a big part in what it has become today.  Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and Monday Night Football color commentator Don Meredith passed away last month, leaving behind him a legacy of greatness in the broadcast booth.

Before the MNF trio of Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Don Meredith hit the air in 1970, football broadcasts could be described as being very plain and matter of fact.  Announcers called what they saw on the field and added very little else in the way of color or insight.  Jackson, Cosell, and Meredith changed all of this.  Meredith, in particular, became a household name.  This is because 'Dandy Don' put the game in terms where fans could get a feel for what to look for in the game.  He connected the game of football to the fans who loved it.  And the fans loved him for it.  Meredith also incorporated humor into the broadcasts.  His back and forth dialogues with Cosell were both funny and entertaining.  Football was no longer just a game.  IT WAS ENTERTAINMENT.

Don Meredith spent 9 years (1970-1973, and 1977-1984) on MNF and was in the booth for a couple of Super Bowls.  This only tells a small part of the story though. Meredith's effects on the broadcasting of pro football have lasted far longer than did his years in the booth.  Sure we still see the 3 man colorful group of Monday Night Football announcers(currently Tirico, Jaworski, and Gruden) much like we did with Jackson, Cosell, and Meredith; but Meredith carved out an entire niche for the broadcasting structure that we see today.  NFL TV and radio broadcast teams are almost sure to have an ex NFL player amongst them.  The likes of Aikman, Jaworski, Simms, Millen, Johnston, and Collinsworth grace the booths every time we turn on our televisions to watch an NFL game.  Just like we did with Meredith, we have these colorful ex NFL players connecting the games on the field to us fans sitting in our living rooms.

Pictured here with Cosell and Jackson, Don Meredith became a household name

This practice has become so commonplace in NFL broadcasts that Meredith received the Pete Rozelle Award, given every year to someone who has contributed greatly to the game of pro football, in 2007.  When we turn on our TVs this afternoon for the conference championship games or for the Super Bowl in two weeks, we can still look to Meredith for the way that those games will be brought to us. Dandy Don blazed the trail for what we will be watching, and what we will almost certainly find to be entertaining.

Put Him In Front Of A Camera! Maybe?

Why do I call myself a sports nut?

When describing the level to which sports fans follow sports, there are three categories that fans fall into:  (1) sports observers, (2) sports enthusiasts, and (3) sports nuts.  Sports observers are fans who have a working knowledge of what the home teams are doing and what the national sports headlines read.  They can sound competent in most water cooler conversations and may even enter the annual march madness pool.  Sports enthusiasts are those fans who passionately root for their teams and closely follow the goings on in the sporting world.  The sports enthusiast's mood on a given day can quite often be dictated by how his or her team fared the night before.  And then there is the warped world of the sports nut. A sports nut is someone who's life is centered around sports.  Every non-sports conversation or action is nothing more than the necessary evil before the next game or the 20th visit of that day to Espn.com

I can comfortably say that I am a sports nut.  Just to give you an idea: I watch about 40 hours of live sports per week during football season.  That number jumps to at least 50 hours per week during basketball season.  I would watch more if there were more games on!  Notice that i said 'live sports'.  Those numbers do not include the countless hours that I spend on watching sports news and preview shows as well as at least 100 visits per week to ESPN.com.  I follow baseball, basketball, and football the most closely.  I also follow golf/tennis majors, MMA, pro wrestling, the Olympics, World Cup, Bodybuilding, Stanley Cup playoffs, and boxing.  Starting to get the picture?

How did I get to this point?

I began following sports at age 5.  Growing up in Cleveland Hts., OH, I quickly took to Ohio State, the Browns, Cavs, and Indians.  I spent my childhood idolizing Cory Snyder, Mark Price, and Bernie Kosar.  After the Browns lost in the '87 AFC championship game(just after my sixth birthday) as a result of John Elway's well chronicled 98 yard drive/Richie Karlos' barefooted fg in OT, I wrote Bernie Kosar a long letter in an attempt to cheer him up.  With class, Bernie sent me an autographed picture in return!

This passion of mine for the godsend that we call sports only grew with age.  As I have always been very tall, I naturally took took to being a horse jockey.  I'm just kidding, obviously I played basketball.  I played for St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland.  Our team was largely successful, even making it to the Division 1 state final in 1998.  Unfortunately, my injuries began to mount.  I was forced to gut through my entire junior and senior years with severe foot and shoulder problems that later required multiple surgeries.  I graduated in 1999 from St. Ignatius.

  As I was being recruited by a number of schools from Divisions 1, 2, and 3, although none offering scholarships, I decided to play basketball in college.  I ultimately chose John Carroll University, a small jesuit college in Cleveland, because it afforded me the chance to stay close to home. I still played a year of varsity basketball and was one of three freshman on the team that year to letter, which was no small feat since a freshman had not done so in the four years prior to that.  Playing through the injuries caused me to lose the love for playing that I once had though.  I decided not to play for my last three years at John Carroll.  I graduated in 2003 with a degree in Business Management. 
While my playing days have been over for some time now, my love for sports has only grown.  Not a day goes by where I do not indulge myself in watching sports for multiple hours.  I have made many cross country pilgrimages for sporting events, many times by myself when I could not find someone to go with me. I have also become very well versed and drilled in physical fitness and nutrition.  I body build although not competitively. I have not yet pursued a career in sports as I have worked for my father's school fundraising company for the last 7 years.

Me getting ready to lift weights...while watching sports of course!

So why have I not pursued a career in sports?

Up until the last year or so I always thought that having a job as an ESPN anchor or as a basketball/football television color commentator would be a dream come true.  After all, I would get to do two of my favorite things: watch sports and do public speaking.  I felt this way until I really started to take a closer look at things.  Except for a 2 month busy period in mid August-mid October, I work 35 hours a week.  This has afforded me the ability to settle into my life as a sports nut.  I have put together my own extensive gym in my apartment complete with 2 huge plasma screen hd tvs.  A typical weekday for me includes my working from 8-3(while listening to sports talk on satellite radio in my car most of the day), napping from 3-5, working out while watching Around the Horn/PTI/Sportscenter, and then watching sports from 7pm-1am.  My weekends are much simpler as I just watch sports from 12pm-1am(later if Hawaii plays a home basketball game at 12am est.).  I have being a sports nut down to a science.  So would a 50+ hour a week job (not including travel) with ESPN, really help my being a sports fan?  Sure I would get to meet a bunch of players and coaches as well as be much closer to the action, but I shudder to think how many thousands of key games I would not be able to watch.

 The other issue that stands in between me and many jobs is my shoulder.  I mentioned above that I had multiple sports injuries.  One of them was a severe shoulder injury.  I am on the verge of my third left shoulder surgery in two years and even standing for more than an hour causes me a tremendous amount of pain.  This has been the case since high school and is not something I anticipate improving significantly. With my current job, I am in a car most of the day and generally do not have to stand for much more than forty-five minutes at a time.  My shoulder still flares up, but the surgeries have at least done enough to make it tolerable on most days.  However, there is no chance that i could work long hours or a job that would require me to be on my feet much.





ESPN's Bill Simmons

This does not mean that I could not see a career in sports.  I just have to change my path of thinking!  After giving it more consideration, I decided that a career in sports journalism would be amazing for someone such as myself.  However, I could not help but notice in the textbook that a typical journalist puts in fifteen hours days.  For me, this career path would only be possible if I am able to do a great deal of it from the comforts of my own home.  This is something that I would be able to handle physically and, at the same time, I would be able to watch sports as much as I have been. I know that these jobs are hard to come by, but to have a job like that of Bill Simmons of ESPN.com is what I aspire to have.  My hope is that I am able to learn how to come across and get such a job.  Because it is a job where I can still watch and follow all of my sports, but where I can also write about my first love... SPORTS!