Sports News Conference comes at right time

The conference, to be held on 29 and 30 March next at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, home to FC Real Madrid, will cover "Sport from A to Z to win over audience and advertisers" with topics including community sports journalism, local and regional sports sites, development and diversification strategies, right to information, media coverage of the Olympics, and much more.

"Sports news should be at the centre of any media company's growth strategy," said Olivier Bourgeois, director general of South-West Europe for WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. "Though sports news coverage has long been central to what readers expect from newspapers, we're now seeing huge new opportunities for both digital and print publications. The conference is an opportunity to learn more about these developments."

The conference will draw publishers, CEOs, managing editors, sports editors, marketing managers and business development managers. There is still time to join them: full conference details can be found here.

Speakers include:

• Claude Droussent, the chair of the conference, who will provide a case study on how Cristiano Ronaldo became the world's most popular sports personality on Facebook. Droussent, CEO of the Malt sports consultancy and former newsroom manager at the sports daily L'Equipe, will speak in a session dedicated to sport and social media.
  
• Matt Kelly, publisher of Mirror Group Digital in the United Kingdom, who will provide a conference overview of new players, new competitors, innovations, disappointments, and outlook on the development of sports news.
  
• Laurent Louet, chief sports editor at Le Figaro.fr in France, which has responded to its readers' love of golf by putting the sport at the heart of its development strategy: greater editorial coverage in the print edition, a dedicated website with premium content, iPhone and iPad applications and organisation of events. Le Figaro aims to become the prime media reference for golf in France.
  
• Ben Clissitt, head of sport at Telegraph Media Group in the United Kingdom, will focus on coverage of the upcoming London Olympics and will examine planning coverage, how non-rights holders can maintain a voice in a converged age, how to differentiate web, mobile and print and what not to worry about.
  
• Marcin Gadzinski, head of development at Sport.pl/Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, who will share his experiences in creating local sports sites in six cities. His presentation will examine how to extend the national brand, share features such as scoreboards, stats and live scores, train editors on using social media, and increase traffic and sponsorship.
  
• Andrew Moger, executive director of the News Media Coalition, who will discuss how sports organisers are imposing unacceptable conditions on news coverage of sports events to drive readers away from mainstream media - and what can be done about it. He'll speak in a session with Stephan Phillips, board member of the Norwich Football Club, who will address how traditional media can work collaboratively with football clubs.
  
• Cyrille Frank, WAN-IFRA consultant and social media expert, who will show how to build a relationship with fans with relevant and original initiatives on Facebook or Twitter.
  
• Juan Hevia-Aza, marketing manager for Marca, who will explain the diversification activities of a leading daily sports newspaper.

Plus much more! Full details at www.wan-ifra.org/sportsnews.

As an additional benefit, WAN-IFRA is offering participants the opportunity to visit two of the most famous sports newspapers, AS and Marca, on 28 March, the day before the conference, to discover their newsrooms, discuss strategy and examine their organisations. Full information, including registration details, can be found here.