Last week you promoted yourself, this week you will promote someone else. As a sports information, or public relations person in the sports industry, you will write a lot of news/press releases. Simply working in the sports industry, you will read a lot of them too! Either way, you should be familiar with, and know how to write, these releases.

Press or news releases are used to inform the media about something newsworthy in an effort to garner coverage for a person, place, or thing. This could be something about a person, team, event, new facility, or anything else an organization is trying to promote.
The release should provide who, what, where, when, why, and how in the first one or two sentences. This is the opening paragraph, and should never be more than one paragraph.
The body of the news release should provide additional information pertinent to the subject. Depending on the release, the body should be one or two paragraphs, with each paragraph being three to five sentences. The body is the story part of the news release.
The last paragraph is the boilerplate. This provides an overview of the company or organization, a quick snapshot. This is similar to the About Us section of most company websites, although the boilerplate may be a shortened version.
All press releases need to include point of contact information, which goes at the very top. There should also be something that signifies the end. Many public relations people will center ### at the bottom of the page to signify the end. In the sports industry it is also common to see the team name, initials, or such at the end of the list.