Dear Sir,

It is 3.53am as I write to you with a sincere and urgent request for your kind consideration regarding the continuation of the Sport Scoreboard section in your esteemed daily.

As an avid reader of The Royal Gazette and an educator at West Pembroke Primary, I have made it a point to ensure that our pupils understand and appreciate the value of your newspaper. Each section serves a meaningful purpose: the weather page guides travellers and fishermen, while the obituary page keeps our community informed and connected in times of loss. In the same vein, Sport Scoreboard plays an equally vital role.

Sir, sports are not merely a pastime in this country — they are a cornerstone of our culture and identity. A simple drive along the Bermuda Half-Marathon Derby route or attendance at the Cup Match Classic would vividly demonstrate the passion, pride and unity that sports inspire across our island.

Your sports editor, Ross Clarke, attended the recent Government Sports Awards ceremony at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club. That event alone showcased the remarkable breadth of sporting talent and the numerous governing bodies that thrive within our small community. It underscored a simple truth: sports matter deeply to Bermudians.

The Sport Scoreboard has long been an indispensable feature — a concise, reliable and highly valued source of information. It allows readers to stay informed about local road race placements, match results and event times across a range of disciplines, including but not limited to football, netball, karting, cycling and swimming. Just as importantly, it connects our diverse population to international sport, offering quick access to results and fixtures from competitions such as the Premier League, NFL, NBA and Champions League.

In a community as diverse as ours, with many overseas residents and workers, this feature serves as a vital link — not just to sport, but to a sense of belonging. It is a daily point of connection for readers of all backgrounds, uniting them through shared interest and enthusiasm.

To discontinue or significantly scale down Sport Scoreboard, as has been apparent over the past month, would be to remove a feature that is both practical and deeply meaningful to a broad cross-section of your readership. Surely, within your capable sports team, there is the expertise required to sustain this valued section. Your readers understand the effort that quality journalism demands — and we equally recognise the importance of preserving features that genuinely serve the community.

At a time when "March Madness" captures global attention and the Fifa World Cup approaches, the relevance of such a feature is even greater. The inclusion of fixtures and scorecards, as was done so effectively during the cricket T20 World Cup, is not simply appreciated — it is expected by a loyal and engaged readership.

I would also like to extend heartfelt gratitude to those individuals who have, over the years, demonstrated the foresight and dedication to maintain this feature. Their work has not gone unnoticed.

In closing, Sir, I respectfully urge you to reconsider any decision that would see the discontinuation or fracturing of Sport Scoreboard. I am confident that many readers share this view and will express their support. As our Sports Minister so aptly stated at the recent awards ceremony: "Sports matter."

WENDELL SMITH

Paget

Editor’s Note: This newspaper is very aware of the place sports holds in Bermuda’s consciousness and how the island has punched well above its weight over the years, including by the letter writer in his cricketing days. With regard to Sports Scoreboard, The Royal Gazette will continue to publish local results and in fact intends to expand this feature, both in print and online.

The decision to cease publishing overseas sports results has come after lengthy consideration. Three major factors played a part in the decision. First, in the Internet era, sports fans can find more statistics online for international sports online than this newspaper can ever hope to provide in print. Second, it is a harsh reality that the newspaper has fewer pages than in the past on which to present the news, and the scoreboards took up a considerable amount of space in Sport. Third, and perhaps most importantly, collating the scoreboard is a time-consuming task and we believe we can provide a better service to our readers by freeing up our journalists’ time to gather more stories which will be of as much or more interest than the scoreboard.

Having said that, our job is to provide our readers and the Bermuda public with the information they want and need. If our readers tell us they want the full scoreboard, then we can revert. However, we hope that our presentation of more — and more varied — sports news will be welcomed by our readers and will more than compensate for the loss of this feature.