The morning panel of WAN-IFRA's conference in Paris on managing sport news, "Make sports news the mainspring of your growth," started with reflections on trends and future perspectives: multimedia and social media tools emerged as the main points.

As Matt Kelly, Publisher of Mirror Group Digital (UK) and chairman of the conference, underlined, social media shows how important is building a relationship with readers. Cristiano Ronaldo's Facebook page has around 20 million fans, he said, and this is an extraordinary example about how social media are an incredible tool that make it possible to have a real interaction with fans, who are, after all, the readers.

It is important for sport news organizations to bare in mind that rather than trying to get the audience to them, is essential to go where the audience already is, and to build a relationship with them there.

"Know your audience" said Kelly, citing the example of Mirror Football page, which is experimenting with an "audience targeting" strategy. When a reader accesses the website he/she is asked to answer some questions which help to define what kind of football fan he/she is. The questionnaire thus provides valuable information about the reader, who will get contextualized news as well as targeted advertising.

Social media are useful tools but at the same time they constitute competitors for the news industry. Not only do footballers have their personal page on Facebook, but football clubs usually have their own websites, and these often have very rich editorial content. They provide live breaking news and they open a direct line of communication with fans. The news industry, Kelly underlined, has to reflect on what should be its relation with them: should they all collaborate? Are these direct relationships and the new "match reporter" connected through Twitter a threat for sport journalism?

Paulo Henrique Ferreira, digital media executive manager of the Brazilian sports daily LANCE!, underlined that at his publication, multimedia is the key. Historically a print newspaper, LANCE! has become a multiplatform news group specialized in sports content. The transition wasn't easy, Ferreira admitted, and has required a real change of culture in the newsroom, but journalists are now conscious that a multimedia approach is the key today.

All journalists are prepared to do basic videos and then a dedicated digital team coordinates everything. Integration is also physical: all departments work together in the same newsroom, print and digital editors sitting side by side.

LANCE! produces a daily newspaper, a magazine called FUT!, which has had since an iPad edition since November 2010, the website LANCENET!, connected with social media and a Web TV and it has also a mobile service, LANCE! Mobile, which provides a SMS paid subscribers service since 2006. In 2009 the group launched service for smartphones and started releasing apps.

What really defines LANCE! however, Ferreira believes, is the sense of community that brings together its readers, a sense of belonging. "LANCE! hasn't readers, has supporters", Ferreira said.

Readers or fans?

Sport is a passion and readers are first of all sports fans. Get people involved is so a key point, no matter if you are doing it through social media or traditional press. Focusing on this sense of community is particularly effective for local sport news organization, as Stephan Phillips, Managing Director of Archant Norkfolk (UK) highlighted during his speech.

Archant Norfolk is the largest division of the UK's biggest independent regional newspaper company. Interestingly, in 2009 Phillips became also director of the Norwich City Football Club, putting him in the particular position of being able to see both parts of the court. In the UK, the local and regional press is very fragmented and competes with big players like BBC and Sky, who cover national sports as well as the local ones.

What has made a difference for Archant is the sense of community the group has built, involving readers in open web chats, comments and mobile devices.

All these reflections have economic reflexes as Stephan Minard, marketing manager of Nexway (France) pointed out. Sports news readers are a loyal audience, and a participative, supporting, community-spirited audience. Minard underlined that sport is in fact social as fans discuss about their favourite sport, sport is for communities, no matter if united by sports or by clubs, sport is entertainment and sport is real time information because fans want hot news.
What emerged from his presentation so is that social interaction is a key point for success: having an active community, provide entertainment and relying on the users' experience contribute all to the economic success of sport news.

@font-face { font-family: "ＭＳ 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria Math"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }.MsoChpDefault { font-size: 10pt; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSectionRegarding the relationship between news organizations and sports organisers, Larry Kilman, Executive Director of Communications and Pubblic Affairs of WAN-IFRA, said that they have a mutually beneficial relationship. However, it is important to remember that sport news is firstly news and entertainment secondly and news organizations have to maintain their important role in freely and independently covering sports events.