Perception of sports data journalism among heavy users. Case study: Predictive model during the 2018 Football World Cup in El País

Abstract

In recent years, sports and, most notably, football coverage has become a breeding ground for data journalism. The vast number of statistics collected from scheduled matches have helped data analytics techniques based on applied mathematics to be expanded in current sports journalism. This article examines the statistical model in predicting results developed by El País for the first time to enhance its coverage of a mega sporting event: The 2018 FIFA World Cup held in Russia. This research also analyses the level of acceptance and understanding of this advanced statistical method among heavy users of sports content. To this end, a semi-structured questionnaire involving both open-ended and closed questions was conducted to know the views of both Sports Journalism students and sports reporters from twelve Spanish media outlets. The results reveal that the news values of applying advanced statistics to report on probabilities in a sport tournament encounter a reluctant attitude and an uneven level of understanding among professionals and students. Despite this, data journalism is mainly perceived as a huge opportunity to diversify the agenda and improve the quality of sports coverage.