Media Spotlight – sportinglife.com

Founded as a newspaper in 1859, sportinglife.com exists today as a  website marrying live sports content with betting information and opportunities. Editor-in-chief of 365 Media Group Graham Shaw says, “when the site was launched in 1996, it was envisaged that the main revenue stream would be from betting, and that remains the case today. However, the website itself has certainly evolved in the way it covers events, with live commentaries, blogs and chats increasingly playing a key part these days.”

Later this year the UK will host one of the world’s largest sporting events, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. sportinglife.com has a dedicated news section for The Games and is working hard to keep it updated with the latest content. Graham says that his team “works closely with a number of PRs on their Olympics content and are conducting regular interviews with athletes ahead of The Games. In the run-up to The Games we’ll obviously beef up our Olympics selection considerably to do justice to what is the biggest sporting event we’ve ever had in this country. Athlete diaries and specific features are one way of working closely with PRs during the event, and done correctly these are a great way of giving our users an extra insight into what it takes to win medals. We’re certainly keen to hear from PRs with Olympics proposals and indeed any sports-specific ideas!”

In January 2007, 365 Media Group became a wholly-owned subsidiary of BSkyB. “Being owned by Sky has only helped to improve sportinglife.com. We work closely with the editorial team on skysports.com and this means both sites have extra resource and a bigger pool of content to choose from. It makes everything under the Sky banner stronger and offers our users the best sports content in the market. One new area of strength as a result of Sky’s ownership is that it also gives sportinglife.com and the other 365 Media Group brands access to superb video that we otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

sportinglife.com places a growing importance on the use of social media. “The challenge for our team has been in generating enough time and resources to devote to it along with maintaining the exacting standards we pride ourselves in on the website. Having said that we value our users immensely and try to interact with them as much as possible, particularly on Twitter and Facebook. Often they become friends as much as customers! It’s something that when done properly gives people a better insight into what we do, gives us the chance to talk to them on a daily basis and gain insights into what we can change, improve and develop. We’ve naturally experimented over the years to grow both our user base and revenues. You need to remain mindful of offering what the users want, not necessarily everything you want!”

Making the Pitch: Tips & Advice for Pitching to editorial team at sportinglife.com:

“I like to think our relationship with PRs is good, though obviously it always could be better. Wherever possible we’re honest about what we would and wouldn’t use, and we’ll always advise to try and find a way to use content. The team would like to receive press releases that are relevant to sport, involvement of sports celebrities or products specifically involving sport. We try to reply to everything we get though that can be difficult at busy times. In terms of releases the best thing to do is keep it simple and make sure you get the best angle in early. Many people read the first paragraph, and if that doesn’t grab them they’re done. Always bear that in mind, you have to sell what you want to push straight away!”

Editorial information on sportinglife.com, along with thousands of other media contacts and websites, can be found in our CisionPoint media database.