Sports Illustrated layoffs

A feature on Player X that had a couple good weeks and is the talk of his/her sport, SI's bread-and-butter, is also too risky on a month's lead time. Season previews would also be a stretch, you'd miss the late stuff like Andrew Luck's retirement. And forget doing anything around March Madness, and on, and on.

 

Without commenting on Racquet magazine, because I have never actually seen an issue. ... there are still some niche publications that can pull off a print product that comes out quarterly or bi-monthly or monthly. The nichier (is that a word?) they are, the more there still seems to be a market.

I think it requires a targeted subject or interest where there is a passionate group of people who will rally around a publication like that and support it. It can be a small group of enthusiasts, as long as it can generate targeted advertising or ancillary businesses that sell things related to the interest. It's a big bonus if it is a hobby or interest that appeals to wealthy people, so it can attract luxury ads. Even better if it is something that lends itself to ancillary businesses, such as events related to the niche or conferences or selling equipment or branded merchandise. ... with the magazine essentially giving the authority to be in those other businesses (so sometimes, the magazine itself can be a money loser). Many of the kinds of publications I am talking about don't have a lot of subscribers, but are still financially viable.

SI, at least as it exists, is too much of a generalist magazine to pull off what I think you are talking about. Sports is a niche, but SI isn't targeted to something defined or rare enough, and as a result it is operating in pretty saturated market.

If you want to operate a successful print magazine still, it needs to be geared toward people who own private jets or are tropical fish enthusiasts or are poultry farmers for a living. And even with those kinds of magazines, I am not sure how long the print model is going to hold up into the future.

 

General-interest city/state magazines come to mind for me as the best monthly templates, like Texas Monthly or Philadelphia Mag. The covers are pretty formulaic (best new restaurants, year-end awards, etc.) but the writing and storytelling are generally very good. They're still working as print products, thanks to credibility with their audiences. I have never lived in Texas but have subscribed to Texas Monthly off and on for 15 years.

 

Texas Monthly was an interesting publication in that it is a regional, but it did some really good journalism that gave it a strong national reputation and a decent-sized national subscriber base. It won National magazine awards and was a favorite of people who wanted good long-form writing. But the magazine hasn't done very well recently. ... it's pretty much the same story as a lot of other print. It's gone through a few owners -- a private equity owner that tried to cut costs and build it up and then sold it to Randa Duncan Williams a few months ago (rich woman, who seems to want to own it more as a vanity project than as a profitable business, but maybe I am wrong about that). But it really has moved away from the good (more expensive) long form to more web-friendly short lifestyle things, and it's not nearly the magazine it was even 10 years ago.

 

Yes. Prior to the Internet age eating up the print magazine business. It had a run from the 70s to the 90s. There was also "Sport" magazine, which was a long-time monthly. It actually predated SI.