Sport is not an afterthought

Whoever said No news is good news didn’t factor in the importance of sport at the end of hourly radio bulletins.

In a world of international conflict, political upheaval, escalating crime and the soaring cost of living, sport is our salvation. A godsend for some. And that is why it is worshipped, even by those who don’t have a religious bone in their body.

It is clearly designated in the holy book (and I don’t mean Wisden):

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose.”

In this case, the seasons are footy season and cricket season. In amongst that, at other times of the year, we have ‘seasons’ for tennis, golf, Formula 1, horse racing and netball, to name a few.

During the winter months in Australia, two codes rule the sporting kingdom in the media: AFL and NRL footy. It’s an undisputed hierarchy and nary an NBL score or A League update will ever come between them.

But with the increasing prevalence of national radio news bulletins, there’s an elephant in the room.

If you’re a Sydneysider, AFL might still be aerial ping pong to you. (If you’re Kyle Sandilands actual ping pong holds more gravitas).

Conversely, if you happen to live in Melbourne, chances are you couldn’t give a stuff about rugby league.

However, if you’re a news presenter, you have a responsibility to not only understand both, (the codes, not the supporters – no-one gets paid that much) but to deliver that knowledge with confidence and passion.

As Game Changers Radio podcast co-host Wade Kingsley recently observed:

“A sport report nationally doesn’t sound right locally. As AFL fans, when you hear a newsreader go ‘The Sydney Swans – six goals, seventeen behinds,’ you immediately know they don’t know AFL. And Melbourne lives and runs on AFL.”

News, as we know, should be conversational. Any Melburnian worth their salt will tell you that we generally don’t go around saying “I hear the Geelong Cats are playing the Collingwood Magpies tonight at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.”

And yet, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a newsreader deliver these double and triple banger clangers instead of just ‘Geelong’ or  ‘the Cats’, I’d have bought myself a private island in the Caribbean by now.

Similarly, an AFL savvy journo may have no idea when it comes to NRL footy. Who cares about State of Origin? It can’t be a big deal if the AFL doesn’t have it, can it?

Go to jail. Go directly to Boggo Road, Pentridge or Long Bay, because that is where that thinking belongs.

AFL and NRL are growing quickly and strongly outside their heartland, both in terms of fans and participation.

At the same time, radio networks are making prime time programs and news bulletins national rather than local.

If you’re a newsreader and you know your stuff, it shouldn’t matter which city you’re in. The listener shouldn’t be able to tell.

Achieving a balance is the tricky part. You can’t be seen to be giving one code more attention than the other. If AFL leads sport, NRL comes second and vice versa, based on the same criteria you use for hard news. What is the most relevant story for the audience?

The listener is the other player in this game, and for you, the most important. Your personal preference is not only unimportant, it can be detrimental to the station.

A former news colleague was into UFC Fighting at a million miles an hour. He insisted on running it up high in sport, and the bloodier the biffo, the better.

I’m not so sure the audience was as keen to hear the gory (and I do mean gory) details.

There are other journos who treat sport as an afterthought, simply because they have little or no personal interest in it themselves.

But consider this. There are times when sport will transcend the back half of your bulletin and lead the news. Think the America’s Cup, The Matildas or an Australian winning gold at the Olympics.

You have to do it. So do it properly. Don’t keep on filling your sport code quota with scores from completed games overnight into the late morning and early afternoon.

Writing sport is like working at the Bureau of Meteorology. You won’t get an argument when you nail it. But when you get it wrong … “It’s Marcus Bontempelli and Marnus Labuschagne, not the other way around. Get it right, *&%*$!!”

The moral of this story is pretty simple.

Don’t ever let sport be an afterthought.

This article is brought to you by Radio Release.