National Convention Offers "America's Insatiable Appetite for Sports"
With SPJ's national convention less than two months away, one sports-related panel that looked of particular interest is the Thursday, Aug. 27th discussion, "America's Insatiable Appetite for Sports, and the New Media Careers it's Creating." Tim Franklin, director of the National Sports Journalism Center at the Indiana University School of Journalism will lead the forum.
More details: "At a time when much of the news industry is contracting, the number of sports information outlets is exploding, and so, too, are job opportunities in this new media paradigm. Why? Advertisers are following readers and viewers to these increasingly popular sports news outlets. Despite the economic downturn, there are projections that online sports advertising will double in the five-year period ending in 2012. The 10 largest sports blogs now collectively bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually. Sports leagues and teams are bolstering their own Web sites to draw viewers and advertisers away from mainstream media, and to better control the flow of information to the public. And, entire cable networks are being created to cover individual sports teams, conferences and regions. The session will cover who's creating this burgeoning sports information business, the jobs it's spawning, and the new kind of journalism it's producing."
There are of course many other programs during the three-day convention. You can obtain more info at www.spj.org.