Positivism in sports columns : a content analysis of six southern daily newspapers

The purpose of this research was to determine, through content analysis of sports columns, if winning or losing had any effect on the amount of positive, negative or neutral news published about three Southeastern Conference football teams in six different daily news-papers.

The main conclusion of the research was that sportswriters generally tend to be more favorable toward a team when the team wins than when the team loses. It was also found that reporters' expectations of a team played a large part in how much positive, negative or neutral news was written about a team.

Other major conclusions indicated that for a winning team post-game columns were more positive than pre-game columns, but for a losing team, post-game columns were less positive than pre-game columns. There was no significant difference between pre-game columns written about teams following a loss and pre-game columns written following a win, but there was a correlation between the degree of winning or losir and the amount of positive or negative news that was published about a team.

The teams analyzed were The University of Tennessee Volunteers, the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the University of Kentucky Wildcats. The newspapers studied were the Knoxville Journal, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the Birmingham News, the Birmingham Post-Herald, the Lexington Herald and the Lexington Leader.