PURPOSE We love sports because of the stories. Stories of teams, sports and athletes are shared through the media and, often, facilitated by sports communications professionals. Working with the media is an important part of sports communications. One of the key tools for that relationship is the game notes and media guides the team’s sports communications staff provides to media outlets, online sources and, increasingly, directly to fans. The media guides and game notes provide statistics for the team and for individual athletes along with sport-specific information. In addition, the sports info director/sports communications team will provide storylines, narratives and info that can help the media tell a broader story. This assignment will require you analyze game notes and media guides to suss out the stories & track the stories embedded in the guides through traditional, online and social media coverage. WHERE TO START You will work in a team of no more than four and collectively identify a team that you would like to focus on for the first 4 weeks of the term. Parameters: • The team must be in its season right now. That includes: college and professional football, college and professional soccer, major league baseball, college volleyball, cross country. • Your team needs to have at least four games, meets or matches between 9/28 and 10/31. • Your team must publish its game notes and media guide online. • You need to be able to watch the broadcast of a majority of the games, meets or matches — ideally live, but recorded is ok. Game Notes & Media Guide Analysis 


 HOW TO 1. Choose your team & identify where to find and download the media guide and individual game notes. Determine your team’s schedule and where the events will be broadcast. 2. Prior to each event, you will read and analyze the game notes with the purpose of identifying: • What are the key storylines or narratives does it seem the team wants the media to know? • How do you know? (what is your evidence? quotes or images from the notes?) • Are there other stories based on your own knowledge, prior media coverage or info in the media guide or game notes that you think the media will be interested in? • Note: You will do a deep read of the game notes. You should really know the game notes inside and out. 3. Prior to each event, you should also seek the game notes for the opposing team and do a more cursory review to identify any obvious storylines or narratives you should be tracking. 4. Watch as many of the events as you can live and listen to the broadcasters. What do you hear from the game notes? Also review the team's social media to see the storylines they create based on their game notes. 5. After each event, do a media scan and monitor social media using Meltwater. Do you see or hear the storylines and narratives from the game notes in any subsequent coverage? Game Notes & Media Guide Analysis GRADING • Format: Follow the directions, ensure the report is complete and all parts are included. • Insights & Critical Thinking: Demonstrate critical thinking and bring meaningful insights to your reporting. • Creativity: Bring your team’s unique perspective, be thoughtful about layout and presentation. • Quality: Grammar and style are error-free, overall quality represents client-ready work. 

THE REPORT Context (2 - 3 pages): • Provide an introduction to your analysis that includes: • An overview of the team, the sport, the league, the season to date, etc. Create the context in which the four events you tracked exist. • Which events did you track? • An examination of the media market. Where is the team based? What is the media like in that market? Who are the key traditional media (print, sports radio and television)? Who are the beat reporters? • An examination of the online and social media landscape for the team. Who are the online media sources? Are they credible? Who are the key social media influencers/opinion leaders? Who do fans pay attention to? Content/Research (2 - 3 pages): • Based on the media guides and game notes, what key storylines and narratives did you identify? Consider organizing by event for event- specific stories and an overall synthesis for stories that persisted through all four events. • What is your evidence? (quotes or images from the media guides and game notes; citations) • Did you identify any other storylines or narratives? And how? (ex: general media coverage, pre-event/analysis media or social media, opposing team game notes). • What is your evidence? • Based on the live coverage, media scans and social media monitoring, what are the key storylines and narratives that were part of the conversation after each event? • What is your evidence? (quotes or images, citations) Overall Analysis/Conclusion (1 page): • What did you find effective about what the media guide and game notes you reviewed? What was ineffective? Did the game notes sync with media coverage? • What insights do you have about the media coverage for each event (and the team as a whole)? • What recommendations do you have for the team for improving the game notes, media guide, media coverage, etc.? Game Notes & Media Guide Analysis