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'.