Abstract: Based on the 320，000-character language data from United News Network’s Sports Column and People’s Network’s Sports Column，using Biber’s multi-feature and multi-dimensional method and Antconc，Debug，and Microsoft Access software，this paper has made a metrological comparison of features of language used in sports news coverage，features that include standard form/time ratio，lexical density，word frequency coverage，high-frequency words，low-frequency words，distribution of parts of speech，word length，sentence length，and sentence types. The result reveals that the two networks are highly common in lexical density，high- frequency words，distribution of parts of speech，length of phrases，and distribution of full sentence lengths，presenting the timely and accurate characteristics of news. They differ considerably，however，in standard form/time ratio，low- frequency words，word frequency coverage，word lengths，full sentence lengths，and sentence types. The United News Network has more abundant word forms and tend to use more medium- and low-frequency words. Compared with the People’s Network，its frequent use of monosyllabic words reflects some color of colloquialism and add more liveliness to its sports news. The United News Network’s longer sentences convey more effective messages；the People’s Network’s shorter sentences give a more balanced and organized expression of messages. Both of them mainly use declarative sentence，which is the typical linguistic feature of the news style.

Key words: two sides of the Taiwan Straits, sports news, news language, metrological analysis, linguistic features, corpus