Substack and Sports Journalism By Jason Cooke
If you want to find out who won last night's Red Sox game, a quick Google search will do the trick. If you want to read about who had a good game, various stories are published at the game's conclusion from talented Red Sox beat reporters free of charge.
But where do you go if you want to dig a little deeper? What are some hidden treasures at Fenway Park? What genre of walk-up songs indicates a better batting average?
That's where my Substack blog, Fenway Treasures, comes into play.
There is research to support the claim that paywall journalism, or subscription-based news, is successful in today's constantly evolving media landscape. That sentiment especially rings true for sports journalism.
“News Subscription Motivation: Why Audiences Pay for News” by Weiyue Chen and Esther states that the two primary reasons people pay for news are to support the backbone of journalism in general and to read quality reporting (307).
Since COVID, when sports took an unprecedented pause, out-of-the-box stories began to flourish. In “Covering sports, when there’s no sports” by Patrick Ferrucci, the study explains how stories at The Athletic completely shifted when sports weren't being played. Fans still wanted to read about sports, but they became more interested in what they did off the field as opposed to what they did on it (398). Stories about players' favorite video games suddenly became a huge hit within sports readership. A new style of journalism was born.
And because sports are so intrinsically engaging, fans keep coming back for these stories. "News Behind the Wall” by Nina Kvalheim found that its engaging nature made it a perfect candidate for paywall news (32).
I tried to apply this literature to my new blog. Besides an introduction post, I published two stories about the Red Sox that I considered to be "out-of-the-box."
My first story is about things to look for when you visit Fenway Park. I discussed statues, food, among a handful of other hidden gems at one of the country's most historic ballparks.
Then, I dug into walk-up songs and how a player's choice of music as they walk up to bat affects their performance. I broke down each player's song and conducted mini experiments on what factors -- including lyrics and tempo -- show discrepancies in performance. It was by far a perfect science, and clearly an extremely small sample size, but it's the kind of creative, humor-filled journalism that I was aiming to produce in this project. I know I've never come across a story about walk-up songs before.
I'm not expecting any immediate subscribers, but just the practice of experimenting with this style of journalism that is excelling in today's market was a fulfilling endeavor.