Are you feeling the World Cup fever and aspire to delve deep into the action by becoming a sports writer? If you are someone who follows or plays sports, perhaps you should consider becoming a sports writer. It would help you generate some side income while you maintain your full-time job, and who knows, if you are successful then you can turn it into a full-time job.
There are so many different sports to write about and so many different platforms to publish on. This guide will help you begin your sports writing journey.
This article will discuss the following steps:
What is a sports writer?
A sportswriter is a journalist who creates engaging content connected to a sport’s specific industry. This can be content that you publish as:
- Videos on YouTube.
- Podcase
- Blog
Regardless of the format, your content has to be original, of high quality, and engaging.
How to begin as a sports writer?
Here’s a list to start as:
- Get a niche market.
- Make your name memorable.
- Create a killer logo.
- Choose the platform you would like to publish on.
- Choose the angle you want to focus on.
- Stay connected and do not give up.
Let’s discuss them in depth:
1. Choose your Niche market.
This should be your first step into the sports writing world. Know your customers.
If you are selling to everyone, you are selling to no one.
Basically, If you try to be all things to all people, you won't be anything to anybody. You cannot make everyone happy, you are no ice-cream.
So you need to who your niche. Your niche market will help you determine your next steps. Are you creating content to men or women? Is football related? Basketball? Chess? Will it be in Arabic or in English?
Once you have identified your niche and created a customer persona you can move to the next step.
2. Get a memorable name.
As a part time sports writer you need to have an easy to remember name. This name could be related to your niche market, you, the sports, or a specific team.
Let’s walk through the process; You may want to publish your content in a podcast format, your content is football focused, and your niche is Arabic speakers who support a specific football club (To make things easier, let’s assume it is Real Madrid). Your name could then be: “Real Madrid bl3arabi” or “Takrir Real Madrid”.
Those names are memorable because they include Arabic words spelled in English alphabets and clearly state the focus. Real Madrid in Arabic and Real Madrid report clearly inform the Reader what the podcast is about.
Make sure the domain name of your side hustle is available before you move on.
3. Create a killer logo.
Picked your niche and name? Move on to your logo. Here’s what to do:
- Don’t complicate it: Don’t over do it, look at all the big brands in the world and look at their logos. Very simple.
- Choose colors that inspire you: Stick to your brand guidelines. Those colors will stay with you for a long time.
- Keep it relatable: A football because you talk about football, Arabic alphabets because your content is aimed at Arabic speakers, or a mike because it is a podcast. It could simple be initials.
- Keep a version of the work file: You will need it to get the logo in different sizes and maybe different colors to adjust it size to different social media platforms.
You do not need to hire an expert and pay hundreds of dollars when you can use the logo maker from the GoDaddy studio.
Here’s a tutorial on how to do it:
4. Choose the platform and the type of content to become a sports writer.
There are so many options to begin but it all comes down to where your customers want your content? You should ask yourself the following questions:
- Do they want to read it with their morning coffee? Then you need to start blogging.
- Do they want to listen to you while they drive? Then a podcast.
- Does your content require analysis and visuals? Then you need to start a YouTube channel.
The GoDaddy website builder comes with an easily integrated blog.
Pro Tip: Get your reader’s contact details and email address so you can notify them when your next content is out and stay in touch with them.
5. Choose the angle you want to focus on.
This is to further differentiate yourself from the competition. There will be a lot of content creators writing about the same topic. This is your chance to differentiate yourself. Let’s go back to our Real Madrid football example:
- You could create tactical football content to explain to your readers what the coach did differently to win.
- Your content could focus on news related to the club from transfer rumors to gossips about players.
- It could be something related to the habits of the players.
- Could be a healthy mix of all of it.
What matters is being interesting enough to attract the reader’s attention.
6. Stay connected and do not give up.
It will take a while before you create a name for yourself and have loyal subscribers/readers. You cannot expect to get a recognized after 2 articles. Stay dedicated and give your idea some time and effort. You should probably publish one piece of content on weekly basis for a year if you want to stay remembered.
Final thoughts:
- Sports writing is a fun side hustle that can turn into a full-time business in the future.
- You must know who your customers are and tailor your content to them.
- Choose the right platforms carefully.
- Choose a unique and memorable name.
- Build a website and collect readers contact information to stay in touch with them.
- You do not need an expert to create a logo and visuals.
- Give your small project an expiration date and if unsuccessful, drop it.
- Stick to it, and do not give up before the expiration date.
