Press Box: There's no blueprint of what to do if there's no sports

If you've found this in the print edition, you've probably already figured it out. The News Tribune sports section isn't its own section.

Starting today, the News Tribune has decided to cut down on its sports pages due to the lack of sports being played. With all of the professional sports leagues in the United States shutting down for the foreseeable future, we've decided the resources of the News Tribune would be better spent in other places of the newspaper.

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But I assure you, the sports department will still be working. I hope we've proven to you as subscribers and readers as recently as the last few days - extensive coverage of the Class 1-3 Final Four in Springfield, following both the Helias girls and boys basketball teams in the sectionals last Wednesday night in Rolla and the Crusaders in their quarterfinal win Saturday in Bolivar, along with updates from Missouri and the NCAA - we will go when and where the stories are.

There will be the same level of coverage later this week for Helias' trip to the Final Four as we provided last week for Blair Oaks, St. Elizabeth and Tipton. Spring sports for the high schools are scheduled to begin this upcoming weekend, we will spend a lot of this week talking to coaches for preview stories for their respective seasons. When those seasons start, we will be there to cover those games.

For now, we have decided to limit the number of times we run the scoreboard page each week. With no leagues or colleges playing for updates, there is no reason to run it daily. The same with TV listings. We will continue to run the calendar, listing the scheduled high school events.

This is a fluid situation, we have nothing set in stone. There's no blueprint to work off, since nothing like this has happened before. The plan is when the professional leagues get set to resume playing, which will be at least a few weeks, the sports section will return to its full size.

Everyone at Central Missouri Newspapers - from our owners down to the others with me in the department - know how important sports coverage is to our readers. You can see that in the size of our sports staff and number of pages - which has remained the same in recent years. There aren't many, if any, newspapers in the state that can say that.

So while the section may be a little smaller, I want to stress there still be sports in the News Tribune and we will continue to work hard to bring you the best coverage in Mid-Missouri.