Why Media Coverage of British Basketball is So Important – With Mark Woods – Ep. 37

For episode 37 of the Hoopsfix Podcast we sit down with the UK’s leading basketball journalist, Mark Woods.

Woods has been covering the game for close to three decades, initially with one of the earliest sites covering British basketball, his very own Britball.com, along with becoming a regular contributor in a number of leading national newspapers, along with online publications such as ESPN.com.

Along with basketball, he also covers athletics and a variety of other Olympic sports. He has been shortlisted both in the British Sports Journalism Awards (Investigative Reporter) and the Professional Basketball Writers Association Awards (Game Story).

The majority of his British basketball writing can now be found over at MVP magazine.

In this little-over-an-hour episode, hear from Mark Woods on:

• What first sparked him to get interested in covering British basketball
• His role as a journalist and what he sees his role and responsibility as
• Why he’s passionate about basketball in comparison to other sports
• Why the game struggles to get mainstream media coverage
• How media coverage has changed over the years
• Why he believes National Team success to be crucial in terms of growing the game
• The changing nature of the culture around the British game
• What he would do if he was in charge of the game
• The importance of having a single unifying voice representing British basketball
• The need for the British game to pro-actively sell itself
• Telling the stories of British players
• How he approaches telling controversial stories and asking the tough questions
• The British basketball story he’s most proud of breaking and covering
• How bigger media outlets perceive British basketball and how they decide to cover them
• Why he’s always had his own publishing outlet on the side
• Whether he could make a living from just British basketball
• British Performance Basketball and the missed opportunity of London 2012
• Some of his favourite British players to watch and cover over the years
• Advice he would give to an aspiring basketball journalist
• Recommendations for clubs to maximise press coverage
• And much, much, more!

As always, I’d love to get your feedback, come back after you’ve listened and lets get some discussion going in the comments.

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