Recent Memphis basketball newpaper coverage

First, it pains me to jump into this endless debate, but I can't seem to resist.

I would like to thank Mike for showing up and responding to critics.

My views on how the Observer could improve Niner coverage and why it is benificial for them to do so:

- 7500 per game is more than 4 or 5 posters on a forum. I hope you don't think you are only alienating those who post here. The fact is that our fans consist largly of young professionals and soon-to-be young professionals who no doubt pose great opportunity for your paper in the long run.

- More stories will help little in my opinion. Since Stan left the beat the stories seem to be half hearted. You don't have any responsibility to sell the program, but you may want to consider how to sell your coverage of the program to those interested. One simple, emotionally based tip, Keep the Niners and any mention or reference to them far away from anything that could be taken as a proACC bias.

- The school, alumni base and hopefully the program are growing. I hope you see the potential that is there in terms of readership and have the ability to take advantage of it.

- It's not ALL bad! The season preview was great last season and was noticed by Niner fans far and wide. My former roomate, a casual Niner fan, even mentioned "never seeing this type of great coverage for US before." The fact is hometown rags DO pander to local fans, and they can do so while staying objective. However, we feel like Observer writers cringe when they get a Niner story to cover instead of something on the ACC. I believe that is a dangerous perception of the paper by a moderate sized "niche". I hope you don't feel as complacent about that as you seem to.

Again, thanks for taking our punches, and please reconsider the role and potential role of the Niner basketball fan in the grand scheme of your sections readership.

 

Good post Champ, I can see that mountain air has opened your head a bit! Hope you'll be posting more since hoops time is rolling around. Maybe I'll run into you Friday night in Halton!

 

the incentive is what every team in America needs, and that is RPI! Local ACC teams, you would think, would want a quality loss or win to Charlotte because they have finished an average of about 40 the last 7 years. All wins and losses with top 50 RPI opponents are looked on favorably by the the NCAA. Maybe one more top 50 game would of got the Tarholes in the tourny last year.

 

OK - I looked to make sure they weren't alphabetically, and then just assumed you had ranked them based on your opinion. My bust.

 

You mean the Davidson where the UNC coach at the time had gotten his first job in coaching? That Davidson? I have no idea why we might play them........

 

using that logic, Clemson should schedule Lutz every year.

 

Plus a very rare guaranteed win for the Heels. I doubt the McKillop-Doherty connection had a lot to do with it - Carolina played Davidson before Doherty rolled in, did they not?

 

We aren’t complaining about national coverage, just local. CUSA receives its fair share of coverage throughout basketball season. Memphis is a great example of what kind of coverage we are looking for. Memphis is surrounded by SEC schools that have a lot of fans residing in the metro area (UT, Miss St, Ole Miss, Arkansas), but the paper still gives first priority to the local Tigers.

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Great points Champ. Mike spoke about the female market as a growth market, but the Niner fan base is also a growing market.

 

So had Judy hired Doh instead of Watkins, the Tar Heels would've come to Halton Arena?

That is some good stuff you're smokin'!

 

Our schedule is routinely one of the best in the country, so we really don't need to improve it by adding UNCC. To be bluntly honest, if UNC felt the need to strengthen their schedule, I am betting that they could do better than UNCC.

The bottom line as it realtes to UNC and RPI over the past 2 years has not been schedule strength. It has been winning games.