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The Evolution of "The Toy Department": A Content Analysis of The Evolution of "The Toy Department": A Content Analysis of
Newspaper Sports Sections Since 1956 Newspaper Sports Sections Since 1956
John Carvalho
Auburn University
C. Thomas Preston Jr.
Gainesville State College
James Pokrywczynski
Marquette University
Nicholas Kirby
Auburn University
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Carvalho, John; Preston, C. Thomas Jr.; Pokrywczynski, James; and Kirby, Nicholas, "The Evolution of "The
Toy Department": A Content Analysis of Newspaper Sports Sections Since 1956" (2012).
College of
Communication Faculty Research and Publications
. 491.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/comm_fac/491
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The Evolution of "The Toy Department": A
Content Analysis of Newspaper Sports
Sections Since 1956
John Carvalho
Journalism, Auburn University, Auburn, AL
C. Thomas Preston Jr.
Communication, Gainesville State College, Oakwood, GA
James Pokrywczynski
Department of Strategic Communication, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
Nicholas Kirby
Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of sports sections in eight metropolitan newspapers over six decades, from 1956
until 2006. Results demonstrated that newspapers devoted more space to sports, although a slight decrease
(perhaps due to increased popularity of the Internet) was noted in 2006. Newspapers also used more locally
written articles on their section front. Spectator sports coverage increased over the period, at the expense of
participant sports.
Introduction
There is debate on when newspapers first started drawing readers through lively sports sections. Some credit
the innovation to William Randolph Hearst,
1
while others see it as a feature adopted by several publishers,
including Hearst.
2
The sports section augmented sports' influence on society at the turn of the 20th Century. The
mid-century introduction of television, however, initiated a cycle of change in audience media consumption. The
diffusion of the Internet in the 1990s brought about yet another change that continues to affect the newspaper
sports page.
So where have these new media left the sports section? This paper seeks to help answer that question by
looking at newspaper sports sections in eight metropolitan newspapers over a 50-year period, from 1956 to
2006 — a time of great change for both newspapers and sports. Several underlying industry factors have
affected newspapers during this period: changes in ownership patterns, from private to public; transitions in
population density from rural to urban to suburban areas; and increased competition for advertising dollars. The
role of sport in American life has changed as well, and television has exerted great influence on that
change. This chapter in an ongoing study can help scholars determine how newspaper sports coverage has
changed over this period.
Literature Review
Sports journalism first captured the attention of readers in the 1820s and 1830s, but through magazines, not
newspapers. Popular titles included Bell's Life in London (founded in 1821), American Turf Register and Sporting
Magazine (1829), and Spirit of the Times (1831), the most widely read sports magazine of the period.
3
Later in
the century, readers flocked to Richard Kyle Fox's weekly tabloid, the Police Gazette, whose lurid content
included the most aggressive sports coverage of the era, which helped the tabloid periodical reach an average
circulation of 150,000.
4
As the 19th century drew to a close, newspaper publishers were recognizing the value of
a sports section in increasing circulation. Charles Dana of the New York Sun, Pulitzer and in particular Hearst
were among the most aggressive in building and promoting sports coverage.
5
By the 1920s, sports played a key role in newspaper circulation strategy. As W. P. Beazell, managing editor of
the New York World, said in 1929, "There is no single classification of news that sells more papers than
sports."
6
The approach of a heavyweight championship match increased circulation and sports section size even
more.
7
Damon Runyon of the New York American recognized his responsibility as a highly paid sportswriter: "If a
sports writer can't help circulation, he isn't worth a dime."
8
Even as economic depression reduced the overall
number of pages in newspapers, sports maintained a steady proportion, reflecting readers' continued interest.
9
Following World War II, the advent of television initiated a flattening of newspaper circulation, but in sports, the
two media established a complementary relationship.
10
With television providing the game information to fans,
newspapers focused less on game reports and more on analytical articles and on human-interest features.
11
In
survey after survey in the 1970s, newspaper readers asked that more space be devoted to sports, and
considered sports coverage to be an attribute of a quality newspaper.
12
By the early 1980s, sports editors were
reporting that their newspapers were devoting more space to sports coverage and that the quality of sports
writing had improved, but that their sports section was not devoting more space to local coverage.
13
Related
research looked at such specific issues as gender issues related to sports photos
14
and the length of leads,
15
but
did not address broader topics related to the sports section as a whole.
Later in the 1980s, in an effort to increase readership among women, newspapers were hiring more women and
debating whether to devote more space to health and fitness articles. Newspaper sports departments were also
addressing the lack of minority sportswriters. As one strategy to slow circulation declines, newspaper publishers
reported devoting more space to sports and hiring more people to report it, particularly high school sports.
16
As
early as 1991, the New York Times had increased the space devoted to sports by 50 percent, and its sports staff
by 10 percent.
17
Within a few years, the Times, long a holdout from having separate sports sections, was starting
a separate run for sports, with pictures in color.
18
As of the late 1990s, the Internet's effects were beginning to emerge.
19
Nevertheless, sports coverage in
newspapers was at an all time high, with newspapers willing to pay top salaries for the best sports
reporters.
20
Some newspapers, such as the Washington Times, had converted their Sunday issues almost
entirely to sports.
21
After the turn of the century, however, sports sections began to plateau and decline in print
versions. Recognizing the challenges posed by new media, one writer warned as early as 2001 that sports
sections must change as both reader interests and television coverage change.
22
Another change was that even
more sports information was found on the Internet — however, the Internet most often contained access to
articles that were found in the print version, as newspapers also put their stories online.
The sports section in a digital culture faces many challenges, even as sports interest continues. Professional golf
and tennis associations became much stricter regarding background checks for press members to cover its
events.
23
Journalists were denied credentials to a golf tournament in Hawaii unless they handed over to the
Ladies Professional Golf Association rights to any pictures their photographers took.
24
Beyond security considerations, sports organizations also tightened access to their resources for financial
reasons. Many well-known sports journalists accepted buyouts from newspapers seeking to cut costs, and
moved on to high-profile television, magazine and Internet jobs: Tony Kornheiser (Washington Post) to ESPN,
Selena Roberts (New York Times) to Sports Illustrated, and J. A. Andande (Los Angeles Times) to ESPN.com.
25
The
abundance of sites providing instant stats, from both sports teams and online services, seemed to undermine
the newspaper's traditional role of providing game-day reports, though some felt the need for insightful
reporting remained, even in an Internet age.
26
The debate and change is familiar to sports editors; it has been a
part of newspaper sports journalism from the beginning.
Methodology
In his seminal book Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities, Holsti noted the usefulness of trend
inventories "for identifying major changes across long periods of time."
27
To trace the evolution of sports
sections over a 50-year period, the researchers selected a sample of eight metropolitan newspapers: the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News, the Los Angeles Times, the Milwaukee
Journal, the New York Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the San Diego Union-Tribune. The newspapers were
selected because they reflect a variety of regional metropolitan areas and demographic changes over the
period. Also, the coding project included information relating to coverage of professional sports, and all eight
newspapers are located in cities that host professional sports franchises. The availability of microfilm for these
newspapers was not a minor factor.
A sample of twelve weeks — two separate weeks, six months apart, from the same year in each decade — were
identified. From each decade, the year ending in the same digit was selected: 1956, 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996, and
2006. At the time the analysis was planned, 2006 was the most recent complete year, and the researchers
worked backward from there, a decade at a time. Atlanta and San Diego were served by two major newspapers
that merged into a single newspaper during this period. In those cases, the pre-merger newspaper with the
higher circulation was included in the earlier coding. In multi-newspaper markets, the newspaper was selected
based on its survival until the final year of the study.
The newspapers allowed for an additional layer of analysis. Four of the newspapers in the study (Chicago
Tribune, Milwaukee Journal, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) were in cities with established professional
sports franchises in baseball, basketball, and football, while the four other newspapers (Atlanta Constitution,
Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times, and San Diego Union-Tribune) were in cities that had only one
franchise between them in 1956 (the National Football League Los Angeles Rams), but eventually added
expansion franchises in all four major sports. When appropriate, the two categories will be compared.
The decision resulted in a sample of fourteen sports sections per newspaper for each year. According to
Stempel, a sample size of twelve newspapers within a given year produced adequate results for most such
analyses, and increasing the sample size beyond twelve did not increase accuracy.
28
The months were
systematically varied so that one month (and, by consequence, one seasonal sport) did not overwhelm the
analysis. As a result, each calendar month was included in the study once. The dates within each month were
also systematically varied. The decisions resulted in the eight newspapers being studied within the following
weeks: January 11-17, 1956; July 10-16, 1956; June 16-22, 1966; December 15-21, 1966; May 21-27, 1976;
November 20-26, 1976; April 24-30, 1986; October 25-31, 1986; March 1-7, 1996; September 1-7, 1996;
February 5-11, 2006; and August 6-12, 2006.
Microfilms of each newspaper for the dates of the study were obtained through interlibrary loan. Because the
variables measured were at the descriptive level and not interpretive, each section was coded only once. Coders
mostly relied on the page count within the front-page flag to determine the total number of pages for that day.
When that information was not available, they counted the total pages themselves. Sports pages were counted
by the coders. When a full-page ad ran at the end of the sports section, it was not included in the sports section
page count.
To measure trends in use of photographs, the coders counted the number of photographs in two categories:
one-column and larger than one-column. To examine the use of locally written articles on the front section page,
coders noted whether each article on the page was written by a staff writer for the newspaper or originated
from a wire service or newspaper syndicate. (Columns were not included.) To discern trends in coverage of
participant sports vs. spectator and prep sports, coders counted bylined articles by newspaper staff members,
then noted whether the article was about spectator sports, participant sports, or high school (i.e., "prep")
sports.
The following hypotheses were tested:
H1. Reflecting the increased interest in sports, the proportion of pages devoted to sports would increase
over the period.
H2. Reflecting developments in layouts and photographic reproduction, the proportion of large
photographs would increase over the period.
H3. Reflecting the increase in size and expertise of sports staffs, the proportion of front-page articles
written by staff sports writers would increase.
H4. Reflecting the increased emphasis on participant and high school sports, the proportion of spectator
sports articles would decrease.
Splitting the newspaper samples into established vs. expansion sports franchise cities allowed a comparison
concerning the growth of their respective sports sections and their reliance on locally written articles on the
front page of sports. In the absence of previous research to guide a hypothesis, the following research questions
were proposed:
RQ1. Does the fact that a newspaper's city gained expansion sports franchises over this period affect the
growth of the sports section in any way?
RQ2. Does the fact that a newspaper's city gained expansion sports franchises over this period affect its
use of locally written articles on the front page?
Results
A total of 671 sports sections were coded.
29
The hypotheses and research questions were tested through a
series of one-way ANOVAs, with the year of publication as the factor. Over the period of the study, the average
number of pages for the newspapers increased between 1956 and 1986, and then decreased slightly.
30
The number of sports pages was divided by the total number of pages to determine the proportion of pages
devoted to sports. Then, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed with the proportion of pages
devoted to sports as the dependent variable. The ANOVA demonstrated a significant difference in the
proportion of pages devoted to sports over the years. The proportion increased each decade between 1956 and
1996 before decreasing in 2006. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was partially supported.
When the sample of sports sections was split into samples from expansion franchise cities vs. established
franchise cities, a surprising distinction emerged. The sports sections in the four expansion city newspapers
exceeded the sections in the four established cities in terms of proportion devoted to sports, for every decade in
the study. The established city sports sections showed a consistent increase throughout the period, while
expansion city sports sections began to decrease in 1986, though it remained above the proportion for
established cities throughout the period.
To test Hypothesis 2, a one-way ANOVA was performed with the percentage of large photographs as the
dependent variable. The proportion of large photographs (larger than one-column) varied between a high of 61
percent in 1956 and a low of 53 percent in 1986. Neither a consistent trend nor a significant difference was
detected, however. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was not supported.
The number of locally written articles leading the sports section increased over the period. A one-way ANOVA
was performed with the percentage of locally written front-page articles as the dependent variable. In 1956,
fewer than half of the lead-page articles carried staff bylines; by 2006, the number had increased to more than
ninety percent. Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported.
Table 1. Average pages per newspaper by decade
YEAR
AVERAGE PAGES
1956
85.53
1966
110.66
1976
124.19
1986
150.66
1996
148.53
2006
143.07
Table 2. Average percentage of newspaper pages devoted to sports by decade
YEAR
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE
1956
6.96
1966
7.90
1976
8.85
1986
9.69
1996
10.13
2006
9.65
n = 671, F = 10.883, p < .001
Table 3. Average percentage of newspaper pages devoted to sports by decade: expansion vs. established cities
YEAR
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE
EXPANSION CITIES
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE
ESTABLISHED CITIES
1956
7.59
6.33
1966
8.49
7.30
1976
9.87
7.97
1986
11.19
8.30
1996
10.76
8.96
2006
10.23
9.19
When the sample was split into the existing franchise and expansion franchise subsets, a large difference
emerges. Local coverage on the front page started lower but increased at a significantly higher rate in the
expansion franchise cities, from 38 percent in 1956 to 99 percent in 2006. For newspapers in established
franchise cities, the increase was steadier, from 57 percent in 1956 to 87 percent in 2006.
Finally, despite calls for greater emphasis on participant sports, the percentage of participant sport articles
actually decreased during the period, and the percentage of spectator sport articles increased. The main
decrease in participant sports coverage, however, appeared to be in outdoor articles (hunting and fishing). The
percentage of prep sports articles did not vary significantly.
Discussion
This analysis of the evolution of sports pages from 1956 to 2006 reflected the changes that affected sports
media during the period. The trend in proportion of pages devoted to sports showed that television did not
draw readers away from newspapers, as some might have feared. Instead, the data reveal an increased interest
in sports between 1956 and 1996. Even the rapid expansion of sports on cable television did not reverse this
trend. Far from replacing newspapers, first broadcast and then cable television developed an interest in sports
among readers that newspaper publishers sought to capitalize on.
The trend held true whether the newspaper was located in a city that had major professional sports franchises
for decades, or whether it was located in a city that only recently been awarded such franchises. It is intuitive to
assume that the arrival of a professional sports franchise would increase sports page interest. Based on this
study's findings, however, it is more likely that several factors — fan interest, media interest, and economic
promise — interacted to create a situation that was promising for prospective franchise owners.
By 1996, the impact of the Internet was beginning to be felt. Before, broadcasting provided the images and
newspapers provided the written information. Ten years later, the proportion declined for the first time, as
sports fans found such information conveniently online. Perhaps newspaper publishers recognized that and
began to devote their resources there, away from print.
Table 4. Average percentage of locally written articles on the front sports page, by decade
YEAR
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE
1956
47.31
1966
59.55
1976
70.12
1986
88.40
1996
89.89
2006
92.62
n = 667, F = 77.263, p < .001
Table 5. Average percentage of locally written articles on the front sports page, by decade: expansion vs.
established cities
YEAR
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE
EXPANSION CITIES
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE
ESTABLISHED CITIES
1956
38.18
56.60
1966
59.25
59.85
1976
63.55
76.93
1986
95.80
81.00
1996
96.82
83.38
2006
98.48
86.75
n = 667, F = 12.559, p < .001
Table 6. Percentage of article topics, by decade
YEAR
SPECTATOR SPORT
ARTICLES*
PARTICIPANT SPORT
ARTICLES**
PREP SPORTS
ARTICLES
1956
74.20
16.48
6.60
1966
86.18
8.91
4.92
1976
86.77
6.42
6.82
1986
91.08
4.09
4.83
1996
89.69
3.43
6.86
2006
89.40
3.51
7.09
*N = 668, F = 12.568, p < .001
**N = 668, F = 16.144, p < .001
At the same time, newspapers have been devoting more human resources to the task of sports writing. This is
reflected by the prominence that newspapers have given to articles written by their own staff writers —
prominence earlier given to wire service articles. This could also reflect the sports section's increased emphasis
on local coverage. Newspapers featured local events by local reporters on the front page, with national sports
news mainly moved to inside pages. That the trend would continue is not surprising, since many of these writers
also provide Web content, which is also local in focus.
The lack of emphasis on participant sports articles could be an area of concern. Perhaps the participant sports
articles are being printed in newspapers but do not appear on the sports page. Many newspapers have
increased health and fitness coverage in their features sections, which historically have higher readership among
females.
31
Such articles, in other newspaper sections, were not tracked within this study. Even so, it would seem
that a better way to reach sports fans — long criticized for being "couch potatoes," would be to publish such
articles within the sports sections they read so regularly.
The increase in the percentage of pages given to sports begs the question: Which section lost pages so that
sports could increase? This provides one focus for future research, and additional insights as to where
newspapers are shifting their resources from, as they direct more of their pages to sports.
For deeper understanding of the trends affecting sports sections, qualitative methods could be paired with the
quantitative methods used in this study. Intensive interviews with sports editors and newspaper publishers
could yield additional insight into the reasons behind the changes. Also, this study focused on larger newspapers
in metropolitan areas. Has this trend been noted in mid-sized and small dailies, or in smaller community
newspapers that publish less frequently?
Many newspaper industry observers are predicting great changes in sports journalism, as the Internet and other
media attract more and more readers away from traditional print media. News and other content forms will be
transmitted through a variety of media. As this study demonstrates, whatever forms emerge for news media,
sports will remain a popular choice of news consumers.
Notes
1. William Henry Nugent, "The Sports Section," American Mercury 16 (March 1929) 63: 336.
2. John Carvalho, "Not the Clear Winner: Hearst, the New York Journal, and the Modern Sports Section," paper
delivered to the History Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,
Denver, CO, August 2010.
3. John Rickards Betts, America's Sporting Heritage: 1850-1950 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, 1974), 32-33.
4. John Rickards Betts, "Sporting Journalism in Nineteenth-Century America," American Quarterly 5, no. 1 (spring
1953): 39-56.
5. Betts, "Sporting Journalism in Nineteenth-Century America," 52-56.
6. American Society of Newspaper Editors, Problems of Journalism, vol. 7 (Washington, D.C.: ASNE, 1929), 26.
7. Bruce J. Evensen, "Jazz Age Journalism's Battle Over Professionalism, Circulation, and the Sports
Page," Journal of Sport History 20, no. 3 (Winter 1993): 229-246.
8. Warren Bassett, "Damon Runyon Dissects the Sports Page," Editor & Publisher, April 12, 1924, 11.
9. John Carvalho, "Bad Times But Still Swingin': World Series Coverage Before and During the Depression," NINE:
A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 13, no. 1 (Fall 2004):81-93.
10. Janet Wheeler and Stanton Wheeler, "Mass Media and the Experience of Sport," Communication Research
20, no. 1 (February 1993): 125-143.
11. Robert W. McChesney, "Media Made Sport: A History of Sports Coverage in the United States," in Media,
Sports, and Society, ed. Lawrence A. Wenner (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1989), 49-69.
12. John Stevens, "The Rise of the Sports Page," Gannett Center Journal 1, no. 2: 1-11.
13. Douglas A. Anderson, "Sports Coverage in Daily Newspapers," Journalism Quarterly 60, no. 4 (Autumn 1983):
497-500.
14. Wayne Wanta and Dawn Leggett, "Gender Stereotypes in Wire Service Sports Photos," Newspaper Research
Journal 10, no. 3 (Spring 1989): 105-114.
15. Timothy Gillman, "The Problem of Long Leads in News and Sports Stories," Newspaper Research Journal 15,
no. 4 (Fall 1994): 29-39.
16. C. David Rambo, "Sports Coverage Plays a More Vital Role," presstime, October 1989, 20-28.
17. "New York Times Bolsters its Sports Coverage (50 % More Space, 10 % More Staff)," Editor and Publisher,
April 13, 1991, 12-13.
18. Lee Berton, "Whaddaya Mean, Gray: The New York Times Decides to Gamble With Color and a Whole Lot
More." Columbia Journalism Review 36, no. 3 (September/October 1997): 42-44.
19. Hoag Levins, "NCN's New Web Search Engine: Turning 110+ Newspaper Websites into a Single
Database," Editor & Publisher, July 26, 1997, 54-55.
20. Lewis M. Simons, "Follow the Ball," American Journalism Review 21, no. 9 (November 1999): 68.
21. Mary Louise Schumacher, "More Sports Sunday, American Journalism Review 21, no. 4 (May 1999): 16-17.
22. Joe Strupp, "The Changing Face of Sports." Editor and Publisher, July 11, 2001, 10.
23. "Golf and Tennis Associations Background Checks for Journalists are Too Intrusive." The Quill 90, no. 6
(July/August 2002): S6.
24. "News Groups Refuse LPGA Demands for Control of Event Coverage." The Quill 94, no. 4 (May 2006):13.
25. Weintraub, Robert. "Endangered Species," Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2008, 20-21.
26. Poole, Gary Andrew. "Back to the Future." Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2009, 19-21.
27. Holsti, Ole R. Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company, 1969), 48.
28. Stempel, Guido H. III. "Research in Brief: Sample Size for Classifying Subject Matter in Dailies." Journalism
Quarterly 29, no. 2 (Summer 1952): 333-334
29. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch did not publish a newspaper on Thanksgiving Day (November 25) 1976.
30. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was excluded from this statistical test because it had adopted a tabloid format by
2006, artificially inflating its page count. It was included in subsequent comparisons that involved
proportions of page counts.
31. Rambo, "Sports Coverage Plays a More Vital Role," 26.
