A TV sports reporter is responsible for collecting all the news relating to sports. Your information domain should not focus only on one or two sports but should cover all the major sports happening across the globe. Then, you have to analyze the news items and sort out the more popular ones. This will depend on the city or nation where your program is being aired. The sports reporter has to hunt for the sports news and report it to the audience. He has to make clips and videos for the sports news telecast. The sports reporter job also includes writing the scripts for the news item and editing the news item to make it fit within the time slot. Many reporters also have to conduct interviews of the famous personalities in the sports world, provide live coverage of important sports events around the world, contribute during the sports conferences, and put in queries during the pre/post match conferences.
To become a sports reporter, you must have a good command over the language in which you are reporting. In the high school level, you should take up subjects that include languages like English, writing, speech, and social studies. Earn a bachelor's degree in journalism or mass communication. Though it is not mandatory to have a degree, you certainly get preference if you have a degree. Do your specialization in broadcasting. You may also come across some courses that focus only on sports reporting. If you have taken up courses like copyediting, press law, mass media, and history of sports reporting, it can certainly give you an edge over the others.
The single most important skill required for a TV sports reporter is the natural love towards sports. Not just a few sports, but you must be practically aware of all the sports happening across the world, or at least those sports which have a live coverage. You must have a basic know-how of how a sport is played, what are the intricacies in a sport, who are the players who are currently making waves in that sports, who are the legends in that sport and all that stuff. Apart from that, you must have excellent communication skills, both written and oratory skills. You must be able to work under pressure. Often you have no time to prepare for TV reporting and you have to report impromptu. Reporters may have to a lot of traveling. Be prepared to work during strange working hours. One important skill that can help reporters is learning the skill of writing shorthand. When you are interviewing or attending press conferences, you have little time to note down what is being talked about. You must also be comfortable with handling of cameras.
Take as many writing and speech assignments at school as possible. At the school level, try and cover the local matches involving the local school teams. Write reports of those matches in your college magazine. Try to obtain an internship with local newspaper agency. To start off with, you can cover matches happening locally for the local newspaper. It is a low profile job but it will give you hands on experience about reporting. Most TV channels prefer reporters that have some experience in sports reporting. You can probably start off with writing scripts for senior reporters.
This is a decent paying job. You can really earn great bucks if you are a TV sports reporter associated with a famous channel. Entry level reporters earn somewhere around $36,000 annually. This figure rises sharply if you have made a mark for yourself in this field and are reporting for a popular news program.
Career prospects for a sports anchor are huge. You get to travel different places in the world. You can cover various sports events around the world, you can anchor a sports program, and you can even conduct interviews of famous personalities. You can become a senior reporter and have a team of reporters working under you, and you can even get a chance to manage a sports program or even a sports channel.
If you love any kind of sports and love digging up information, you will enjoy having a sports reporter job.
