by Martin Stabe
Trinity Mirror will launch a new weekly sports
newspaper this weekend, ahead of the anticipated spring launch of a
rival sports weekly.
The new title, RPSPORT, will be distributed
free with the Racing Post on Saturdays but will move beyond the parent
title’s staple of racing and greyhounds. The paper will cover other
areas of sports betting, including football, rugby, cricket, snooker
and darts.
“Our continuing commitment to an ever-growing racing
programme has made a separate supplement like RPSPORT increasingly
necessary,” said Brough Scott, editorial director of the Racing Post.
Trinity
Mirror’s move pre-empts the anticipated spring launch of a rival
national sports newspaper, the Sportsman. But one Trinity Mirror
insider says RPSPORT had been planned since early 2005, only to be held
up by printing constraints. RPSPORT will include a betting markets
section, displaying prices and odds for other betting markets like
Celebrity Big Brother and this summer’s World Cup.
The paper’s
first issue is set to run to 36 pages, but Trinity Mirror said this can
increase in busy periods of the sporting calendar. The paper will offer
advertisers a minimum of 20 colour pages every week.
The paper
will also provide a comprehensive listings guide to sport on TV, giving
prices on offer from various bookmakers and exclusive expert opinions
and tips.
“No other publication has ever done anything
approaching our new sport on TV listings section,” said Chris Smith,
editor of the Racing Post.
The rival Sportsman, headed by editor
Charlie Methven, is aiming for a spring launch, in time for the
expected betting before the start of the World Cup in Germany.
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