France: L’Équipe launches sports paper for youths

L’Équipe, the French sports newspaper, has launched L’Équipe Junior, a free bi-weekly online sports magazine aimed at the 9 to 14 year-old set.

Although L’Équipe has experienced 7.8% drop in circulation in the past year, they decided to pursue the project in hopes of generating brand loyalty amongst younger readers, reports Le Figaro.

The publication will be made available exclusively online at 3pm on Wednesday and Saturday, catering to a 5 million strong demographic amongst which 59% are regular internet users. However, users have the option to print the eight-page paper from the website.

The site incorporates an educational facet as well, prompted in part by L’Équipe’s findings that for 44% of boys and 36% of girls, sports is what most stimulates the desire to learn. Articles are specifically written for kids, and are accompanied by interactive modules including quizzes, polls, videos, and geography tests on trivia such as the location of a particular football club.

If it takes, L’Équipe Junior would seem to have two-fold benefits for young readers. For one, it encourages kids to read with kid-friendly material, and secondly, parents can rest easy that their kids are in a closed portal, and not accidentally stumbling upon explicit content while surfing the web.

Sources: Le Figaro, L'Equipe Junior report for World Editors Forum study tour