It's not just cricket: Content in the sports pages of the Hindu and the Times of India

Abstract

Cricket is Indias de facto national sport but the extent of its dominance in the country's broadsheet newspaper organizations has not been clearly stated. The game is more than a major pastime, having been described as a religion. In this environment, it was important to investigate how much of the newspaper and online sports coverage of two major newspaper organizations was focused on cricket, and how these results compared with other sports. It was also valuable to determine whether there were significant differences in articles published across print and online mediums. The amounts of local and international material in these publications were also considered to discover where the majority of reports came from. The sports pages of The Times of India and The Hindu were examined through a 12-day content analysis of 1814 articles. While cricket was the major sport, it did not dominate at the level expected in all cases. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.