Newspapers Top Source for Sports News

Between social media, mobile and cable TV, sports news outlets have been proliferating -- but newspapers are still the top source for sports news for sports fans.

According to a story by Erik Sass at mediapost.com, among male sports fans ages 18-54, 76% cited the sports section of their local newspaper Web site as one of their “go-to” sources for sports news, while 69% cited the print edition.

That compares with 66% for ESPN.com, 46% for league sites, 45% for Yahoo Sports.com, and 45% for ESPN Sports Center. Further down the list, 33% said sports talk radio and 23% said Sports Illustrated or SI.com.

The finds are from a survey by M/A/R/C for the Newspaper National Network. The poll of 716 men ages 18-54, including in-depth interviews with 404, found that this key audience demo prefers both print and online newspapers to any other source for sports content.

Even more striking, men ages 18-54 who didn’t classify themselves as regular newspaper readers still cited newspaper Web sites as their top source of sports news.

Overall, 75% of non-regular readers cited newspaper Web sites as a go-to source, compared to 71% for ESPN.com, 40% for Yahoo Sports.com, and 38% for ESPN Sports Center. Sports talk radio trailed at 27%, and Sports Illustrated and SI.com came in at 16% and 13% among non-regular readers.

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