Independent on Sunday, The: Media: The Sportsman: now that's what I call a really big bet

You would have to be a gambling man to consider launching a new daily newspaper in times like these. As we see again today with the publication of the latest circulation figures, it is hard to maintain sales, let alone increase them, so why would anyone join battle now? They would surely have to have a mindset that embraced large binoculars and checked sports jackets, or find contentment gazing at the green baize.

As it happens they do. Most of the names associated with the proposed launch of The Sportsman are ... well, sportsmen. They are familiar with betting terminology; they know their accumulators from their trebles, their each-ways from their Yankees. They are toffs or nearly-toffs, with famous antecedents, moneyed, been to Annabel's, played a bit of poker. They are the Deedes, Aitken or Goldsmith of their generation. Jeremy Deedes, former chief executive at the Telegraph, is non-executive chairman. They'll enjoy a flutter, or a bit more, off duty, but they would not risk their fortunes. So why The Sportsman?

Here we must enter a world that is increasingly populous, yet a mystery to those of us who have never penetrated it " the world of the online punter. We read of online poker companies being floated to produce mind- boggling market valuations. We examine websites such as SportingOdds.com, SportingLife.com and SportingIndex.com and we suddenly realise you can bet on any sport online, not to mention poker and blackjack.

Is this sad? I think so. The idea of the lone poker player in front of his screen trying to read the inscrutable face of the opponent he cannot see is tragic. But no more so than the lone gambler on the horses, dogs or goals. Suddenly, and those of us not involved in online gambling communities (an oxymoron if ever there was one) have remained unaware of this, it is big business. Where there's business there's potential advertising, and where there's potential advertising there's room for papers. That is the logic of The Sportsman.

Not that this is a vacant market. Trinity Mirror owns the well established Racing Post, selling about 84,000 copies a day. It made a reputed pounds 18m last year. It is seriously profitable, and the gambling boom has aided that. The Sportsman, the brainchild of Charlie Methven, a former Daily Telegraph journalist, will be trying to share in these profits of sin.

As long as I can remember there have been conversations, often after a drink or two, about whether the British market could sustain a daily sports paper in the style of France's L'Equipe. We are, after all, sports crazy, Olympic hosts, and we have two sports radio channels and a satellite TV broadcaster whose success is based on three channels of sport.

We have seen the success of sports magazines, mainly football magazines, such as When Saturday Comes and Four Four Two, and their influence on sports journalism in established national newspapers.

But there have been two main reasons why the daily sports newspaper has not become a feature of British publishing. First, the huge expansion in the number of pages in our newspapers has meant that the space given to sport has increased vastly. Separate sections such as those published by The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times can run to 24 pages. Not that major sporting events increase circulation discernibly, with the possible exception of World Cup and European Championship football. It's just that all the papers commit to sport, and special supplements for big events, because all their rivals do. They cannot be the odd one out.

And then there is the fact that sports pages do not attract advertising. Look at them; look at the huge areas of editorial space in which pictures and words luxuriate; but seldom an ad. Companies tend to become involved in sponsorship rather advertising. General display advertising will reach a greater audience on the news and feature pages. Sports pages are restricted still to that proportion of men who are interested.

Even today I shiver when I read that Charlie Methven 'will be publisher and editor in chief once pounds 12m have been raised'. Even today I smile as I read of all the encouraging noises coming from potential investors, and wonder at the confidence of the claim that the title will break even with daily sales of 40,000. I've been there, made the presentations, dozens and dozens of them, to stony- faced potential investors whose eyes glaze as you speak enthusiastically of the editorial concept and engage when you mention the rate of return on their investment if the project flies.

My involvement was The Sunday Correspondent. We raised the pounds 20m, published the paper for 15 months, and then, as a result of circumstances there is no space to describe here, closed. I've never regretted doing it, but I cannot help reacting as I do to the Methven- Deedes plan.

The growth is online. The poker is online. And yet The Sportsman will be a daily newspaper. The traditional betting person, and one senses that those behind The Sportsman are very traditional, has a vision of a racecourse and distaste for a betting shop. Online betting is another world. The Sportsman mentions online, but it does not seem central enough.

If you want to feel the difference between traditional betting and the new online poker world, visit the Inside Edge website. This is the online trail for the new magazine from Dennis Publishing, the firm behind Maxim. The language and mood are different.

While brave men plan to enter the daily newspaper market, this month's ABC circulation figures continue to show wide areas of decline. Comparing June of this year with June of last, all titles, daily and Sunday, have lost sale apart from The Times (up 3.4 per cent) and The Independent (up 0.2 per cent).

Otherwise downward drift, worst in the Sunday red-top market (The People down 9.1 per cent, the Daily Star Sunday down 15.9 per cent, the News of the World down 4.6 per cent, the Sunday Mirror down 2.6 per cent). In the daily market, the worst year-on-year figures come from The Guardian (down 7 per cent), the Daily Express (down 6.8 per cent) and the Daily Mirror (down 5 per cent). It could be that everybody's waiting for a new daily sports paper for gamblers. But don't bet on it.

Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of Sheffield