You may even be a sports page reader and not be fully acquainted with the breadth of material it covers. The games themselves are the soul of sports but they are not the soul of the sports page. If sports is all about watching games then what is all this stuff in the newspaper every day?

It's added stuff that makes the games more fun to watch. It's context that adds texture and nuance to every interaction in a game, every play, every score, every win or loss. People want to know more than you're telling them, they want to know as much as they can get their hands on and it all helps them experience the rest of it more profoundly.

A player having a great game is one thing, having a great game the day after being sued is another. What the sports pages do you can also be done to enrich the experience of your film and maybe make fans who otherwise wouldn't have cared.

Character Bios

The sports page is filled with player info. There's more to tell about your characters just as there's always more to learn about players. Actors often write out extensive bios of the characters they are playing. Maybe you could harness that material and turn it into an online diary. There are always parts of the screenplay that get cut for one reason or another. The cut material might be able to be slightly expanded and become an interesting story about the character. It didn't work in the film, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable.

Articles On Related Interesting Subjects

When a sports player has a passion for something they might do a feature on that subject. Even though it's not sports-related exactly, if the story is interesting or the player popular enough then people will want to read it. When performance enhancement drugs became an issue sports pages did stories on the history of doping. It's just more context to what the existing issues are that help make things more clear and the players more human. A movie set in Tahiti could have a web site with articles about aspects of life on the island.

News From Other Times In Character's Lives

Not only do fans care about the player's sports-related history they are interested in their life in general. It's important to them what he was like as a high school player but also about the car accident that put his mother in a coma. It needn't be something so melodramatic to interest fans. There are any number of short stories from your character's life that would be something fans would love to read and would make the movie experience that much richer. The story of the movie is not the only one fans want to hear about, they want to know anything interesting. Tell fans stuff that matters to your characters and the characters will matter more to the fans.

Stories From Real Life Related To Subject Matter/Theme

If a small heretofore unknown country suddenly won the soccer World Cup, people would want to know more about this place. They would want a profile on the history of the country and highlights from their past soccer playing. The less you know about something that is important somehow, the more you want to know about it. By making a movie about your characters and the story that you do, you are saying they are important. Help people with comprehending this status by giving them more information about the subject in general. How is your story important in relation to other similar real life stories? If your movie is about kidnap victims in Mexico City, you might publish stories about real life kidnap victims to help clarify the issue. Not only will these stories be an entree to those that have never heard of you but it will also deepen experience for existing fans.

Don't expect the movie to speak for itself. You've become well-acquainted with the subject in the development process and know it thoroughly but don't expect it to come that easy to fans. The more unusual your story and characters are the more context they will need for it to come together in their head. So don't begrudge them their lack of imagination, give them things to help make it something they can intelligently talk about to friends. You may even catch new fans who come across this material and wonder what it's for.