Tim Martinez: Numbers do tell the story

There’s a saying in sports: “Numbers don’t lie.”

And sports journalists love to look at the numbers to see if there is a story out there, information, a trend.

But for years, when it came to discerning what stories readers actually read, we depended more on intuition than data.

Thanks to the advancement of the internet, we can now get hard data that tells us what readers like.

With any statistical analysis, there are caveats. In this case, it’s clear that the appetite of print readers can be different than online readers. They come from different demographics.

But they can help supply some hints.

For example, of the top 100 most-viewed sports features on Columbian.com in 2013, most were not traditional stories that also appeared in the print edition.

They were online-only features. Things like the 14 prep football scoreboard/live chats, 11 prep football player of the week votes and nine fall or winter prep athlete of the week votes. Throw in All-Region fan votes, links to all-league teams, standings, schedules and a handful of blog posts, they represented 55 of the top-100 most-viewed sports elements online.

That left 45 traditional stories that also appeared in the print edition of The Columbian. Nine were Outdoors stories, eight were Blazers/NBA-related and two were Community Sports stories. We also had a feature on a Clark College athlete and a Seahawks story.

The remaining 24 stories were prep sports stories.

Of those, 17 were prep football stories.

Of those, 12 were related specifically to the Camas football team.

So the Papermakers’ run at a state title was certainly good for page views in 2013.

Let’s take a look at the top prep sports stories in 2013, according to page views.

We’ll start with the top five non-football stories.

No. 5: Skyview baseball team wins state championship (No. 33 most-viewed sports story overall).

No. 4: Camas’ Alexa Efraimson wins Nike Cross Nationals (No. 29).

No. 3: Efraimson reinstated after being declared ineligible (No. 27).

No. 2: Union basketball coach steps down to take job at George Fox University (No. 18).

No. 1: Camas basketball team beats Hockinson after fans rush court too early (No. 14).

And now for the top prep football stories, which were the most-read sports stories on Columbian.com in 2013.

No. 5: Economics impact prep football haves and have-nots (No. 6 overall).

No. 4: Camas lineman Drew Clarkson overcomes cancer (No. 5).

No. 3: No appeal on Columbia River’s win over Skyview (No. 3).

No. 2: Camas loses to Chiawana in state title game (No. 2).

No. 1: Columbia River beats Skyview on bizarre last-second play (No. 1).

Let’s see what 2014 brings.

This week

League play in basketball opens this week in the 4A, 3A and 2A Greater St. Helens League. Here are some games to watch.

Tuesday: There are some league games on Monday, but the bulk of the 4A and 3A openers are on Tuesday. Highlighting the slate is Battle Ground at Union in boys basketball between two teams aiming to compete for the league title. And the Trico is close to finishing the first round of league play. The Woodland boys, reeling from suspension of two key players, will get a big challenge when they travel to play King’s Way Christian.

Wednesday: The most interesting game of the week may not be a league game. Mark Morris, the top-ranked Class 2A girls team, travels to play Skyview, ranked fifth in 4A by Seattle Times.

Thursday: The 2A GSHL boys league season starts with a bang as Mark Morris plays at Hockinson.

Friday: There are three 4A GSHL boys/girls doubleheaders. The best pairing of games appears to be Evergreen at Camas, boys at 5:30 p.m., girls at 7 p.m.