By “By: Sandro Angulo Rincón
As I announced in the article about the keys to entrepreneurship in sports journalism, in this brief report, I will analyze the characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of Deporadictos (Spain) and El Míster (Mexico), Ibero-American ventures that have consistently been innovative in promoting sports. The two online media were chosen because:
- They are active and have been running continuously for over a year,
- They are structured as a business model.
- They have a sufficient amount of content related to various sports.
I’ll start with Deporadictos (www.deporadictos.com), a site created in Madrid, Spain, in October 2012, which is still active on its website and social media today. The idea came from two journalists passionate about competitive sports in all its forms, Luis Murillo and Daniel Riobóo. Murillo Arias is a journalist and television scriptwriter, and Riobóo is also a journalist who has worked in press departments. Both share their love for sports as reporters and consumers of events of this type.
Murillo and Riobóo communicated via WhatsApp and agreed to develop sports journalism that would not focus solely on football (or other major sports) but would fill the knowledge gap for many people who do not view sports speculatively and superficially but from a practical (how to exercise) and cultured perspective (connections with literature, politics, economics).
This type of sports journalism gained momentum after 2010, during the Spanish economic crisis, which prompted communication faculties to include entrepreneurship as a subject in their curriculum. Academics such as Juan Luis Manfredi, José Luis Rojas, and José María Herranz de la Casa already foresaw “new ways of managing internet-oriented companies, increasingly linked to the personal brand of the journalist, as well as new themes, narratives, and ways of presenting content.”
Deporadictos’ business model is based on advertising sales, sponsored articles, and promoting external links to bookstores and a T-shirt store (affiliate marketing). A frequent side banner advertisement is for La Tostadora, a Spanish store specializing in selling T-shirts with various designs, although sports themes predominate.
Despite the name of the online media creatively combining the words “deportes” (sports) and “adictos” (addicts), a phrase that only appears in the portal’s URL, there is no logo that positions the media brand on the homepage where the published articles are, nor on each of them after opening the respective link. User interactivity is minimal; comments or opinions are only allowed on the homepage in the “contact” tab.
To be as precise as possible, I will provide the breakdown of the most common sports topics this media covers, expressed in percentages, after reviewing 47 of their articles from 2020. Deporadictos reports on various sports (25.5% of the total 47 journalistic pieces), including data from various disciplines. Hiking (17%), cycling (12.8%), soccer (10.6%), basketball (8.5%), and motorsport (4.3%) also stand out.
The most frequent focus on Deporadictos is related to competition and results (42.6%), followed by the intersection of sports and culture (27.7%). The sports and tourism focus (19.1%) also has a moderate frequency percentage. Lower percentages correspond to sports and health (6.4%) and sports and politics (4.3%). The following chart clearly illustrates these proportions.
The most frequently used resources are social media as a replication of their articles (35.9%) and non-interactive infographics (35.1%). Video has a low presence (4.6%). The only interactive resource is the map, which accounts for 3.1% (see chart).
Finally, the online media publishes articles with primarily international reach (63.8%), meaning they can generate interest from Spaniards and a global audience. However, the national reach of their texts and the combination of national and international content are also significant.
Deporadictos focuses on content that combines opinion, information, and interpretation of athletic and competitive activities, using the WordPress platform with a colorful design evident in the categorization that connects sports with culture, economics, cinema, and other areas.
In the next installment, we will discuss El Míster, a Mexican venture with an interesting monetization strategy.”
