Sports information can appear on the pages of the press in two main types. The first type includes materials about sports that are an integral part of the content of general publications and exist in them as sections, strips, inserts, special issues or separate publications intended for those numerous sports fans whose interest is rather selective, fickle and limited to the largest and most significant sports events and results.
It also depends on the significance and relevance of sports events in public life – during major sports competitions and, especially, in case of victories of athletes, sports materials are of paramount importance and are often put on the front pages. In general, up to 20% of the volume of universal daily and weekly newspapers is devoted to sports.
In addition to the socio-political press, sport is also represented in other types of publications – in particular, publications on sports topics can be found in the business press, in youth publications, and in men’s and women’s glossy magazines. It is clear that the angle of coverage of the same fact of sports life in all these publications can vary quite significantly depending on their general orientation. The business press is interested in sports as a business (for example, sports management or the financial well-being of teams), while readers of glossy magazines see a particular sport as a means of keeping fit, maintaining an image, a fashion trend, etc.
The second source of information about sports is the specialized sports press itself. Compared to all forms of sports journalism in the rest of the press, it is characterized by a high density and regularity of sports information, considerable attention not only to the most popular sports, and a specific focus on a certain audience of sports figures and fans. And the most important feature of specialized sports periodicals is the quality and reliability of the information offered to readers, as it means that it is collected, processed and prepared by sports and journalism specialists who are professionally oriented and most competent in their field.
Types of publications make up typological groups, and one publication can be included in several groups at once, depending on the specific research paradigm and historical situation. Together, the types create a general typological system formed by grouping them according to a particular classification principle, which is to identify a certain set of interacting features that are usually united by the general term “typological features.”
The niche of football publications, among which weeklies predominate, is by far the most densely occupied. The competition is high, but this does not mean that new players cannot appear in this niche if they have fresh ideas and high-quality content.
In other sports, even those that are quite well developed, there is no such intense competition, and one or two specialized publications are enough to cope with the demands of interested readers, provided there are several more publications in the regions.
