Does anybody like sports news?
A UX research study on the current Reach sports news audience
Last month we conducted at Reach a research study to explore our audience behaviour and motivations to read specific news topics related to sports news.
A bit of history: has sport always been that important?
The answer is yes of course, especially in times when the values associated with them were perhaps more violent, political and religious.
Sports have always been part of human societies and played a cohesive role. According to an ancient Roman saying, ‘Panem et Circenses’ (literally bread and games) was the winning combination to rule over the masses for the Romans, by giving to the citizens mass entertainment, they were distracted from government corruption.
A bit earlier than the Roman Empire, in ancient Greece, the famous Olympic games started as a marginal part of a religious festival held in the city of Olympia every 4 years. The games gained popularity over the years and according to Prof. David Gilman Romano in an article for the TIME. The Olympics gained so much hype that at some point they became the equivalent of an ancient rock concert, to cite Perrottet “It was like an extremely badly-planned rock concert, the Woodstock of antiquity. The facility held up to 45,000 spectators but had no seats. […] Was not provided sanitation, people slept in tents, some al fresco.”
But during the years in modern and then contemporary times sports started to evolve and tried to represent people team spirit, sense of unity, and even patriotism. The modern Olympics restarted after the efforts of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who believed that ‘organised sport can create moral and social strength’, a thought that seems to be stemmed after having visited Rugby School in 1883. To him, modern sports discipline explained Britain’s power.
News and sports — the role news are playing in sports
The fact alone that games are happening is not enough of a reason to enjoy them. Most of the experience of sport is to get to know about the games, how they went, who won, who did worst and who did best. And for this, sports news is the main way to get to know the details, and therefore, to enjoy fully the sport experience. After all, the first marathon in modern times in 1896 was a celebration of the 25-mile route run by the Greek soldier who brought news of a victory over the Persians from Marathon to Athens in 490 B.C... Bringing sports news, after all, might be a sport itself.
Our Study: Reach’s audience and digital sports news
In August 2020 we were able to conduct a study on the motivations and the behaviours that eventually lead people to engage with digital sports news.
But why is it important to better know our sports readers?
Understanding ‘why people read sports’ is an important topic for Reach, and consequently, the findings from this study might influence future product development and editorial changes. New changes, for example, might imply the availability of certain sports content (specific sports that are not covered at the moment by the news, new methods for delivering the content to the readers…)
We found out that at least four behavioural traits emerged:
- The Hardcore Supporter — They know everything about their Team.
These readers know everything about a specific sport, but it’s never enough for them. Stats, analysis, long reads, and opinion pieces are the daily way to go with sports news for them.
- The Inbetweeners — Not hardcore supporters but not even noobs
Some readers are not possessing a deep knowledge as the ‘Hardcore supporters’ about one or more sports but still, they enjoy to read about it. They also cannot be seen as super beginner readers, since they grasp the general knowledge of the sports and the main personalities involved.
- The Sport Gossipers — How close Sports can be to Showbiz?
They don’t know so much in-depth about sports — or a specific sport but they tend to have a super general knowledge and deeper range info about certain VIP sports personalities.
- The Socialisers — a ‘let me in’ state of mind
For these readers, sports chat is a great social tool, it allows you to test the ground with another person and understand his/her values.
All the behavioural traits highlight that there’s not a specific personality to connect with a Reach’s product, but there’s rather an approach taken from each reader towards each digital product. This means that we cannot have a defined set of personas to describe our readers but in reality, the digital readers are bonded to our products by a will to enjoy sports news. Enjoying sports news has been a way to be part of the sport experience since ancient times and since the way news is shared changed, the readers’ approach has changed as well.
The sports news experience should adapt to the users, not the opposite
Enjoying the sports experience could be different in different ages, especially if supported by evolving technology. During 2020 we have experienced an unprecedented time globally, and (sports) news have as well. But we have seen also a change in news consumption and a spike in the use of digital products. Of course, digital news was still popular before 2020, but the way it’s been used has also changed. As an example podcasts and radio have lost a bit of appeal since before they were a commuter staple and as the games have stopped for some time and just resumed recently, many user motivations and behaviours depend on the cultural and societal context.
Context, culture and events are constantly changing, therefore our users' motivations. For this reason, understanding users behaviours could help us implement our products and keep the interest high in sports news with specific sports covered and new product features.
