Sports writing is one of the most prominent career lanes in sports media. And while a sports media professional has to be versatile to build a brand, writing and knowing how to successfully make an argument, or present information, can be crucial.
Within the realm of sports writing, there are many subcategories and types of posts. There are informational pieces, news articles, insider stories, opinion pieces, statistical studies, projections and mock drafts – and that list just scratches the surface.
There’s no one correct way to write an article as a sports journalist, because there are so many different niches that a sports writer can fill. But with these helpful tips, you’ll be able to make your story captivating from start to finish.
7 Tips to Enhance Your Sports Writing
1) Know Your Audience
The first step is essentially a pre-step; identifying your audience should be one of your first steps as you embark on your journey as a sports media professional. But that doesn’t undercut the importance of this task. Your content, as long as you optimize and tailor it correctly, will be captivating to the audience you’re trying to reach.
If you want to reach draft junkies, you might tailor your content to the scouting audience. If you want to provide in-depth analysis on a specific team, you might tailor your content to the Falcons in the NFL, or the Pistons in the NBA (our condolences), or the Penguins in the NHL. Or you might carve out a place in the world of in-depth analytics, and satiate the league-wide hardcore fan’s desire for informative insight.
There are many steps that go into making a piece captivating. However, when you’re establishing your brand, you need to target the right audience to generate that interest. Everything else comes after.
READ MORE: 5 Audience Interaction Insights Every Sports Media Pro Should Know
2) Find a Theme and Stick to It
Once you find an audience and cater your content to that audience, the next step is finding ways to keep their focus. Within a single piece of content – whether it’s an analytical, informational, or opinion piece – finding a theme and sticking to that theme is crucial.
The theme or main idea should be established very early in your piece, and all of the writing from that point forward should be geared toward educating your audience on that main idea, in the most efficient way possible.
You can, of course, put your own personal touch in the writing. But with the substance of your work, stay on-target and keep a steady pace. Diversion away from the theme risks losing your audience and repeat readers.
3) Start With a Hook
Knowing your audience helps you direct your content where it’ll get the most attention. Finding a theme enables you to draw attention with a specific idea. Now comes the use of writing itself to keep that attention. The first step is using a hook at the beginning of your piece, to draw the reader into the content itself and start their path forward.
Keep in mind that the type of hook will vary based on what kind of piece you’re writing. If you’re writing up a breaking news story or an injury update, you’ll want to get right into the action, because that’s what the reader is most interested in. But if you’re formulating an argument or conducting a statistical analysis, an eye-catching metric, comparison, or discovery can reel in the topical viewer.
4) Use Sentence Length Variations
You can have a great understanding of your audience, a great main idea to follow, and a great hook, but if the writing itself doesn’t follow suit afterward, you can lose a captive audience quickly. With your writing itself, don’t be afraid to be dynamic, versatile, and variable with your rhythm.
Be especially mindful of run-on sentences that can hinder reader focus and theme conveyance. But also be aware of the situations in which you can use shorter sentences or longer, multi-clause sentences. Shorter sentences can help drive a point home. Longer sentences can help interweave data and supporting evidence, and drive the flow forward. The two work in tandem for the best results.
5) Emulate Speech With Your Text
Another guiding tip to remember when writing is this: There’s a person on the other side. Your audience is composed of human beings, so speak as if you would to a person, and do your best to emulate speech with your text. That’s how your message will come across the strongest.
What does that entail? It differs based on your audience. In certain niches, you can be more conversational or colloquial with your audience. With informational pieces, you might need to be more direct. But in all categories, you can use your punctuation to emulate speech as you go.
Periods can serve as the endpoint for standard sentences. Commas, of course, serve a purpose when you’re writing a sentence with soft pauses throughout. A sharper diversion from the standard flow – as you see within this clause – can be handled with dashes. And when pivoting from one complete clause to another, a semicolon can be used for additional flair.
Be intentional and model your punctuation off natural speech, and you’ll be able to fully captivate your reader.
6) Enrich the Writing with Data
This step won’t always apply to news and informational pieces, but if you’re an analyst or an editorial writer, enriching your writing and themes with data can further captivate your audience. Beyond supplementing your credibility as a source, the use of data gives readers an extra lens through which to view your argument, and it helps forge a more complete picture.
Data has many different functions in a given piece of writing. However, for audience attention specifically, it engages the reader’s mind, strengthens the analytical basis of the piece, provides variation from standard prose, and helps bring the reader along from start to finish. Ensure that you use data with a process-oriented approach for the best results.
7) Tie a Bow With Your Conclusion
The last step is “tying the bow,” so to speak. All of your thought threads, informational nuggets, and statistical insights should work toward a definite conclusion at the end of your piece. Leave the reader off with a final conclusion to reflect on – a cohesive lesson, implication, or final result that allows them to ruminate on what they’ve learned.
If they feel that they’ve learned something and gleaned value from your work, they’ll keep an eye out for more.
