Tips for Sports Writers

There is a reason I don’t write many, if any, sports articles. That reason is because you have to have a real passion for sports, and a real knowledge of them, to pull off a decent article.

Sure, you can post scores like the next schmuck, but to give a real interesting commentary that is going to capture someone’s attention, you have to have certain flair. Here are a few sports writing tips I’ve heard about from my colleagues that people may want to utilize in their sports writing.

• Keep it to the point. If you veer off your subject—the game itself, or the player you’re discussing—too far into other territories, you’re going to lose your audience.
• If you’re writing about a game, watch the full game when you cover it. If you don’t, you’ll probably miss something big that should have been in your article! Even if a team loses, for example, if a player made a stellar catch or touchdown somewhere earlier in the game and you missed it, you’re not providing full coverage—and those who saw the game will call you on it, too.
• Build your story around the big moments. I’ve heard journalism students who specialize in sports writing say that what you have to do is pick the biggest thing in the game—such as the MVP or the most important plays—and build the story around him/her or it.
• Don’t just highlight the best parts of the game or the best plays; discuss the mistakes that occurred as well.
• Don’t use stupid terminology that people don’t like, like calling basketball players “cagers.” If it’s not mainstream and people either won’t recognize it or won’t like it, don’t write it. Think about what your editor will cut from your work and just refrain from putting it in to begin with.
• Include play by play coverage IF it is exciting. If you’re in the middle of the most boring, yawn of a game in history—and you’ll cover one of them sometime—don’t bother.
• Keep other terms straightforward as well; don’t give the ball or the net or the golf course a nickname, and absolutely do not use overused, clichéd terms when describing them, either. Sports readers don’t enjoy it, on the whole, and neither do editors. As a general rule, think about what you like to read when you look up sports scores and information and stick to it.
• If you don’t understand a direct term used by an announcer, look it up before writing about it. There’s nothing more embarrassing than using a word you don’t understand in the wrong way!
• Don’t compare the game to a war or especially an intergalactic star war or Middle Earth battle. That’s just going to lose your audience’s attention, and such analogies are also too overused. Claiming that the winning team “bashed” or “wiped out” or “stomped” the “losers” isn’t very classy to do, either, and you might alienate the fans from that team while you do it. A simple “they won” will usually suffice. Keep it simple.