Are you ready for some football coverage?

30 Aug

College football season kicks off this weekend and pro football the next. Which means your football coverage plans are likely in full swing.

So here’s a checklist to make sure you’re ready for the opening kick.

The basics

  • Schedule page
  • Roster page
  • Historic results, statistics page
  • Desktop wallpaper (could be schedule or just photos of players)
  • Printable schedule posters
  • Depth chart
  • Entertainment guide – what else to do while in town for the game
  • E-mail newsletter
  • RSS feed

Blog ideas

  • Challenge readers to predict the score  (makes a good Friday blog post)
  • View from the opponent (could be a guest post from a reporter who covers the other team)
  • “Where are they now” profiles (football fans love history)
  • Polls (using PollDaddy.com)

Photos

  • Create “ultimate photo galleries” for best players on the team
  • Create historic photo galleries – especially for rivalry games
  • Create historic photo galleries of former players and coaches

Video

  • Produce a weekly talk show (example: two reporter interview each other and discuss previous/upcoming games)
  • Video from the coach’s weekly press conference

Live chats/blogs

  • Live blog during weekly coaches press conference
  • Live chat to answer fan questions during the week (use CoverItLive for live chats)
  • Live chat or live blog during the game (or at least during pregame)

Gameday coverage

  • Live game chat or live game blog
  • Pre-game text alerts with any recent news
  • Twitter updates for news, scoring updates, etc.
  • Post any gameday news to Facebook fan page
  • Pre-game photo gallery right when the game starts
  • Live scoring updates
  • Create first-half photo gallery at halftime
  • Send out text alerts with scoring updates
  • Photo gallery from the game
  • Video highlights from the game
  • Quick-hit halftime analysis column
  • Interactive graphic of the key play
  • Consider an alternative homepage display (and sports page display) for gameday

Mobile

  • Mobile site specific to your team
  • Mobile app
  • Mobile live scoring
  • Text alerts

Social media

  • Facebook fan page
  • Twitter account for site and for individual reporters/columnists
  • Forums
  • Foursquare widget to see who has checked in at the stadium

Want some more ideas. Here’s what some media companies have created for the upcoming season:

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