Are the Devils Cardiffs least appreciated team?

matbur

Well-Known Member
#25
Just catching up with this thread. It is difficult as despite our passion for the Devils, it is after all a minority sport. Wales Online etc are in a tricky situation as, like most local/regional online media outlets, their online content is hugely influenced by clicks and they face constant pressure to achieve this.

I do some freelance sports writing outside of my full-time occupation but my paid work is mainly football. I cover the Devils for Dai-Sport.com but that's on a voluntary basis so I usually try and post something once a week. I have previously tried to maintain a blog on the Devils but it didn't get much interest at all.

Personally, I would love nothing more than to cover the team more intensively, but it just isn't justifiable to do it unpaid. I watch games as a STH with family, so don't sit in a press area and write reports (I do try and maintain twitter updates), or hang about after games to get player/coach interviews which is essential for content.

The Devils themselves do a pretty good job in producing their own content in fairness, but you only get the official team angle which is completely understandable.

I wrote this earlier on Dupont following yesterday's game.
 
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Kevlar68

Well-Known Member
Thread starter #27
And again just now , itv Wales news on TV - sports section - Wrexham football, nothing else.
How shit is that?
The sport reporters for the channels should be ashamed.
Makes me really annoyed.
Not even a quick mention.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#30
Just catching up with this thread. It is difficult as despite our passion for the Devils, it is after all a minority sport. Wales Online etc are in a tricky situation as, like most local/regional online media outlets, their online content is hugely influenced by clicks and they face constant pressure to achieve this.

I do some freelance sports writing outside of my full-time occupation but my paid work is mainly football. I cover the Devils for Dai-Sport.com but that's on a voluntary basis so I usually try and post something once a week. I have previously tried to maintain a blog on the Devils but it didn't get much interest at all.

Personally, I would love nothing more than to cover the team more intensively, but it just isn't justifiable to do it unpaid. I watch games as a STH with family, so don't sit in a press area and write reports (I do try and maintain twitter updates), or hang about after games to get player/coach interviews which is essential for content.

The Devils themselves do a pretty good job in producing their own content in fairness, but you only get the official team angle which is completely understandable.

I wrote this earlier on Dupont following yesterday's game.
This all revolves around how the place of local media (especially the printed kind) has changed over the last 30 years. In the days when everyone bought a paper to know what was going on, the job if the local paper was to inform. Now they see their job as generating advertising revenue because their circulation is lower.

From the devils point of view the club now has to work very much harder to get coverage. It's similar to the issues the sport faced in the 80s and 90s in the national press. Then only the broadsheets showed any desire to devote space regularly.

If the situation is to change, the club and the league needs to get influence. This could be wining and dining journalists, or by doing things like getting well known people attending games and wearing devils shirts. They should also be sending prepared press packs to outlets at the start of the season, at each signing and providing ready to publish reports after each match. In short, create a desire to give coverage and then make it as easy as possible.
 

Samael

Well-Known Member
#31
If the situation is to change, the club and the league needs to get influence. This could be wining and dining journalists, or by doing things like getting well known people attending games and wearing devils shirts. They should also be sending prepared press packs to outlets at the start of the season, at each signing and providing ready to publish reports after each match. In short, create a desire to give coverage and then make it as easy as possible.
I don't think enough people buy or read Newspapers any more to justify this. Most exposure is digital these days, things like twatter and fecesbook, and the Devils are covered there.

That said, regional news coverage on TV and radio are awful, l'd say that is down to the local journalists not caring or knowing. Aside from when the superleague was on sky and BBC did face off in the 90s coverage has always been non existent as Ice Hockey is a fringe sport in the UK. That isn't changing any time soon unfortunately.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#32
I don't think enough people buy or read Newspapers any more to justify this. Most exposure is digital these days, things like twatter and fecesbook, and the Devils are covered there.

That said, regional news coverage on TV and radio are awful, l'd say that is down to the local journalists not caring or knowing. Aside from when the superleague was on sky and BBC did face off in the 90s coverage has always been non existent as Ice Hockey is a fringe sport in the UK. That isn't changing any time soon unfortunately.
The problem with the sources you mention is that you have to look for the coverage. What needs to be targeted is stuff for the incidental reader. That's why getting stuff on sports pages (physical or virtual) is important.

I'm sure wannabe will point out how the coverage in the past was down to a few highly committed individuals. We need to cultivate that again.

In the same way that top class players don't appear overnight, the same is true of the supporting publicity infrastructure that allows the game to grow.
 

matbur

Well-Known Member
#33
This all revolves around how the place of local media (especially the printed kind) has changed over the last 30 years. In the days when everyone bought a paper to know what was going on, the job if the local paper was to inform. Now they see their job as generating advertising revenue because their circulation is lower.

From the devils point of view the club now has to work very much harder to get coverage. It's similar to the issues the sport faced in the 80s and 90s in the national press. Then only the broadsheets showed any desire to devote space regularly.

If the situation is to change, the club and the league needs to get influence. This could be wining and dining journalists, or by doing things like getting well known people attending games and wearing devils shirts. They should also be sending prepared press packs to outlets at the start of the season, at each signing and providing ready to publish reports after each match. In short, create a desire to give coverage and then make it as easy as possible.
From my experience, the Devils are pretty good to deal with. Reports and images are available after every game (same as appears on the website), and they send press releases before any major announcement.

Whether they badger media for coverage, I'm not sure, but I think they're quite aware of their press responsibilities in fairness.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
#34
From my experience, the Devils are pretty good to deal with. Reports and images are available after every game (same as appears on the website), and they send press releases before any major announcement.

Whether they badger media for coverage, I'm not sure, but I think they're quite aware of their press responsibilities in fairness.
I'm not sure if call it badgering. More like building an interest and a desire amongst editors to use the copy they're given. ;-)
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#35
When Terry Phillips was head sport editor for the South Wakes Echo, coverage was plentiful as Terry is a massive devils fan, When Huw Bevan was number 2 in BBC Wales sports dept he created Face Off the very successful Hockey program, Huw was also a massive Devils fan. The late great Bob Humphrey’s who headed BBC sport on the beebs News program, and did the club proud was a huge Devils fan, and the ex BBC news reader Clare Summers who was a lovely human being was also a big Devils fan. Being a beeb staff member also I would get copies of the games and take them to news dept every week with time codes of goals etc and any incidents that might be of interest including interviews, this meant no hassles for news people who were only too glad to have footage. Unfortunately times have changed, and like many things not always for the better, also the human contact which was so important has disappeared, but that’s progress I suppose.
 

Samael

Well-Known Member
#36
Prime example of the poor coverage for the devils below. The article is supposed to be about us winning the play offs and because it's written by someone from BBC NI it prattles on about the giants. I've noticed there has been a definite bias towards the giants for many years on the BBC sports laughable coverage of the EIHL.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/ice-hockey/61288181

The sooner the licence fee is dropped the better. The BBC is a dinosaur of a by gone age and I'm sick of funding it, it's about time all the over paid slugs employed by that corporation had a taste of commercial reality.
 

Devil94

Well-Known Member
#37
Prime example of the poor coverage for the devils below. The article is supposed to be about us winning the play offs and because it's written by someone from BBC NI it prattles on about the giants. I've noticed there has been a definite bias towards the giants for many years on the BBC sports laughable coverage of the EIHL.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/ice-hockey/61288181
Isn't that because BBC NI designated a reporter to cover the game? While BBC Wales obviously didn't. That's why it's written from a Giants perspective, like most hockey reports on the BBC, as BBC NI are the only ones the consistently cover hockey.
 

BostonBart22

Well-Known Member
#38
Need a tv channel in wales dedicated to sport even if it was say from 2pm to 10pm , include all sports of intrest to welsh viewers priority, bbc wales and itv wales only mention rugby when six nations are on, our footy teams hardly get a mention these days, its embarassing tbh.
 

Diafol

Well-Known Member
#39
Need a tv channel in wales dedicated to sport even if it was say from 2pm to 10pm , include all sports of intrest to welsh viewers priority, bbc wales and itv wales only mention rugby when six nations are on, our footy teams hardly get a mention these days, its embarassing tbh.
Nice thought but there's as much chance of that as me replacing Carruth in goal next season.
BBC Wales and ITV Wales news talk 99% rugby all year round, with the other 1% devoted to our Football League clubs.
 

Kevlar68

Well-Known Member
Thread starter #40
2018/2019 Season ITV did a rink side interview with Haddad on the Friday night news about the up and coming playoff weekend.
As for the reason ice hockey being a minority sport i don't buy that at all as recently I've seen tv news reports on female Welsh netball team, a 14 year old table tennis player to name but 2.
Even the regular news has the most mundane articles which you wouldn't class as "News". "This is Dai, he has a tree the shape of a tree"
You get my drift.
 
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