SB Nation

COVERAGE of the NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

This page provides a summary of research results for SB Nation’s photographic coverage of the final game of the NCAA March Madness tournament.

png During the 2013 final game of the NCAA’s March Madness tournament, SB Nation ran rather limited photo and video coverage, compared to some of its competitor sports outlets.  SB Nation, did, of course however, dedicate specific blogs to the Cardinals and the Wolverines to serve its network of fan communities —  Maine N Brew for the Michigan Wolverines and Card Chronicle for the Louisville Cardinals. These blogs served as the main venues for SB Nation’s pre-game, game and post-game coverage.

Jordan Morgan #52 of the Michigan Wolverines falls to the court after he attempted a shot against Montrezl Harrell #24 and Luke Hancock #11 of the Louisville Cardinals during the 2013 NCAA Men’s Final Four Championship at the Georgia Dome on April 8, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia.–Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Overall, researchers pinned* 73 photos from SB Nation the night of and day after the NCAA Championship.  Even though SB Nation dedicated specific blogs to each team, they reran multiple photos (often taken by USA Today photographers) for different posts on their homepage.

  • SB Nation strongly favored the winner in its photo coverage. Researchers coded Louisville in almost 3 out of every 5 photos overall, and (perhaps less surprisingly) noted only 1 photo of the losing Michigan Wolverines during the post-game celebrations.

Louisville Cardinals guard Peyton Siva (3) celebrates with teammates after Louisville won the championship game in the 2013 NCAA mens Final Four against the Michigan Wolverines at the Georgia Dome. Louisville Cardinals won 82-76.–Bob Donnan/USA Today Sports

(Click here to see SB Nation’s photos that researchers pinned to Pinterest.)

These images from SB Nation are a sampling of its photo coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. Clicking a photo links to the Pinterest board of that photo.

Focus of SB Nation’s Photo Coverage during the NCAA Championship Game

SB Nation

SB Nation emphasized the post-game awards and celebrations in its coverage of the NCAA final game.

  • Photos of the awards ceremony and celebration not only dominated SB Nation’s coverage, those images accounted for more than all the other categories combined.
  • SB Nation’s coverage of the game itself was quite evenly split among photos of the action, photos taken of the sidelines, photos of the coaches, etc.

PINTEREST: SB Nation allowed researchers to “pin” all photographs and videos within each blog post and from the site’s main homepage. However, the only social media platform researchers were able to “pin” from was Twitter. SB Nation does not have an Instagram account, and Facebook does not allow “pin” capability on their site. Therefore, researchers could not represent all SB Nation photographs and videos from social media platforms.

CONTEXT: SB Nation, owned by Vox Media, re-launched in 2012 as the largest sports blogging network “created by fans for fans,” with over 310 sites that are devoted to an individual team, sport or league. SB Nation reaches 20 million unique visitors per month. According to SB Nation, it covers every major pro and college program in the U.S. and Canada as well as Nascar, MMA and Golf.

* NB: Researchers applied the same collection methodology for all the news outlets studied. It is likely that the researchers on this survey did not collect every photograph published, and, on occasion, certain photographs that could be viewed were not collectible by Pinterest. The total number of photographs studied, therefore, should be understood to be representative of those published on the news outlets, not an absolute set of all photographs published on all sites.
It is fair to note, however, that the number of photographs of either game collected for any given site is a rough indication of the commitment of that site to photographically covering that specific candidate.