La Gazzetta dello Sport joins sports conference

Nicola Speroni, the marketing manager at La Gazzetta dello Sport, has joined the programme of "Using Sports News to Optimise your Revenues," an international conference aimed at helping newspapers better exploit the value of their sports coverage, to be held in Paris on 14 and 15 January 2010.

Speroni will show how La Gazzetta dello Sport evolved from an old-style, traditional newspaper into a multimedia brand for sports ‘infotainment'.

In 2005, La Gazzetta dello Sport was a black-and-white newspaper printed on distinctive pink paper. Both circulation and advertising revenues were falling. Its website traffic was growing substantially but not producing significant revenue.

To face this situation, they reformulated their approach, carried out deep market analysis to refocus and implement a “radical” new multimedia strategy.

The conference, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), will present solutions for monetising sports information with readers and advertisers.

The event is designed for all media that publish sports information: sports dailies, national dailies, regional dailies, online sites, magazines, and others. Registration details can be found at www.ifra.com/eventsport. (The conference will offer simultaneous translation in English and French).

Others presentations include:

Turning yesterday's news into tomorrow's profit, by Matt Kelly, Associate editor, the Daily Mirror, UK.
Monetising sports content on mobile devices, with cases studies from the French sport newspaper L'Equipe and Sport.gr, a leading interactive publishing sports network in Greece. The sport.gr presentation will be made by Constantine Kamaras, CEO of the company.
Should newspaper groups use sports betting? By Christian Kalb, founder of CK Consulting, a consulting company specialising in sports and prize games where sporting values are prominent.
Sports coverage: news or entertainment? By Larry Kilman, director of Communications and Public Affairs for WAN-IFRA, and a Member of the FIFA Media Committee.
Feedback from the first worldwide community site for sports fans, Thefanclub, by Jean-Sébastien Cruz, CEO, Netco Sports in France.

Full programme and registration details can be found at www.ifra.com/eventsport.

Claude Droussent, deputy director general at Le 10 Sport, will chair the conference, which will feature simultaneous interpretation in French and English. Spanish will be added if more than 10 Spanish speakers are registered.