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Dear Public Editor:
My family and I are very disappointed in the coverage of the Dallas Stars by The Dallas Morning News. The best Dallas sports team should be front page news during the playoffs …. Where is The News’ loyalty to the city’s best sports team?
Michael Horn
Fans of the Dallas Stars are known for their passion. It shows up in their rituals, such as shouting “Stars!” during the national anthem. It is evident in their robust attendance — about 18,000 a game over the last decade. One website even hails them as the NHL’s most loyal fans.
Opinion
Amid the yo-yoing fortunes of the Cowboys, Rangers and Mavericks in recent years, the Stars have scored three straight appearances in the Western Conference finals, making them a pillar of big-league success in the region. So, Stars fans — like Michael Horn and his family — are dismayed when they see more coverage of other teams (such as the Cowboys) fill the pages of SportsDay.
What gives? they ask.
Let’s first state the obvious: In many big-city markets, coverage of the Stars would surpass that of the other franchises. Problem is, this is no typical big-city market.
Case in point: the Cowboys remain the region’s most popular team, despite moribund play and the sometimes-puzzling moves of its owner. “A lot of people read about them even when they’re bad,” says Tommy Magelssen, The Dallas Morning News’ sports editor.
Other teams and sports draw lots of attention too. Two weekends ago, Dallasite Scottie Scheffler, the world’s best golfer, won the PGA Championship, one of his sport’s most important tournaments. His win earned front-page coverage. Then there are the Mavericks, who since February have made enough news to occupy North Texas sports fans for a decade. Goodbye, Luka. Hello, Cooper.
The press of stories splinters our attention and resources. And so Lia Assimakopoulos, Stars beat writer, must also cover SMU football. During the regular season, she rarely travels with the hockey team — save for exceptional trips like their jaunt to Finland last November. To its credit, though, The News is the only local news outlet that has traveled to every Stars’ playoff game this season.
These days, the most urgent challenge are early deadlines, temporarily caused by The News’ transition to a much smaller printing facility in Carrollton. “A really, really good business move,” Magelssen told me. But, “Now that there are high-stakes playoff games, it’s much harder to get people the content they want.”
Print readers in the suburbs and exburbs receive the earliest edition of the paper, which means that those fans have not seen much game content (maybe a photo and Assimakopoulos’ Five Thoughts) during the playoffs. Readers who live closer to Dallas get a later edition, and so they get bit more (perhaps Five Thoughts and Tim Cowlishaw’s column). And those who read the ePaper (as I do) or go to dallasnews.com will see full coverage.
Those print deadlines fall earliest on Saturday nights, which boxes out those far-away readers entirely, and a couple of weekends ago Stars fans sent our sports department emails expressing their displeasure.
Magelssen and his team can’t allow Stars stories to hold up the paper because, he notes, they have learned that “people are more concerned about getting their paper at a certain time than they are about getting the [game] score.”
Stars fans would disagree. They want scores — and more content year-round.
But, Magelssen says, not enough fans seem to follow the Stars closely day to day. For example, online audience metrics for Stars content typically dip in the fall and spike in the spring, with a dramatic uptick during the playoffs, which began in late April.
Compared to the first 22 days of February, Stars content for the same time frame in May jumped by 137%. Perhaps not surprisingly, playoff page views for Stars content — currently the most popular among The News’ digital sports offerings — have skyrocketed by 237%.
Magelssen says he can’t justify deeper and broader coverage unless readers engage with Stars content just as enthusiastically even during the regular and off-seasons.
“Until we get folks to really engage more” year-round, Magelssen says, “I can’t make that pitch” for more coverage.
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