I never paid any attention to local sports coverage, until my kids were in high school. Now I love local sports coverage. Our paper does game summaries, with quotes from players and/or coaches about the game. Some of them seem to be machine-written, or maybe written by the coach? We know the reporter isn't at all the games, especially the away games. They have a season preview about all the local teams for each sport, and a few individual profiles of key athletes each year for each sport. They do a preview before the in-town rivalry game in each major sport, usually with an interview with a senior on one or other team. As I list all this, I realize how awesome our local paper is. Their company is always being bought out, I hope we don't lose this local coverage.
I know that people read these articles, because our friends and neighbors would comment on my son's baseball games, sometimes brought us copies of the paper, if he had a picture in it.
This spring, with no high-school sports, they have been running lots of profiles about the student-athletes in all sports, mostly those who are going to play in college, at all levels. They always talk about their disappointment at losing their senior season, but also about their plans for the future. I have to say, it's uplifting.