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Sports Illustrated layoffs

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by silvercharm, Oct 3, 2019.

Page 42 of 68
  1. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    And isn't the swimsuit issue overdue?
     
    DanOregon, May 18, 2020
    #493
  2. Tarheel316

    Tarheel316 Well-Known Member

    Exactly. I had an editor that was going to start that once. So I asked him if a 15-inch advance with a quote from each coach counted the same as a centerpiece with quotes from eight people. He didn’t answer but the quota idea got stopped before it started.
     
    Tarheel316, May 18, 2020
    #494
    2muchcoffeeman likes this.
  3. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    I had a boss who established quotas on super-special stories. We got to the point where we'd halt working on things in mid-stream if the boss hinted that they wouldn't qualify for the super-special designation.
     
    tapintoamerica, May 18, 2020
    #495
    Tarheel316 likes this.
  4. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    The old management had switched the publication date to sometime in May. Not quite late, but damn close and I can’t find a release date for the 2020 issue.
     
    2muchcoffeeman, May 18, 2020
    #496
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Thanks for this. I didn't know.

    I think they are charlatans by virtue of their business model, but to me, taking the government doesn't make them crooks. That is what Congress set up. If you think they are crooks, anyone who got one of the handouts is a crook. They are doing exactly what those "loans" stipulated you have to do. Keep people on the payroll, and your "loan" turns into a handout. We all pay for it, in that it's all getting tacked onto our national debt.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2020
    The Big Ragu, May 19, 2020
    #497
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Yes. It's SEC filing boilerplate for a small private placement filing or for a company like this, which did a small public offering and trades publicly.

    There is a "risk factor" section they need to include, and they throw everything they can in it, so that if things blow up at some point, they can tell the stuffed shirt with American flag tie pin who comes pointing a finger that they had disclosed the risks.

    It's actually to your benefit to not sugar coat anything or put in any mitigating factors, because the caveats are then used by the SEC to come after you, saying you minimized the risks. As a result, the "risk factors" section is usually the most honest part of those filings.

    They'll put in all of the explanations and rosy scenarios in the management discussion and analysis section, which is often straight BS.

    In this case, the warnings they threw in there match up with the balance sheet and income statement they filed. It looks like a company that has raised millions of dollars, has no clue how to actually earn money, and probably can't survive without raising more money through a debt or equity offering, or by developing a business that actually earns money.
     
    The Big Ragu, May 19, 2020
    #498
    cake in the rain likes this.
  7. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    Wait, that means a company headed by flim-flammers, asking contributors to form LLCs, and then work for next to nothing, backed by the awesome potential of branded sports rehab clinics, was a flawed plan?
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2020
    goalmouth, May 19, 2020
    #499
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    The basic detail of their licensing deal was that they pre-paid $45 million to ABG against future royalties. On top of it, since the financing for stuff was so easy to come by thanks to endless cheap money, they figured why not buy TheStreet.com with another $16.5 million and throw it into the mix.

    The "cheap content" business plan sounds great in the hands of a salesman, but they still needed to monetize that cheap content somehow to earn any money. And that they don't do so well. If there is the burden of an expensive licensing contract and an acquisition sitting as a cost on top of your business model, you need to do that much more monetization of the names you are trying to milk dry to be profitable. If it was that easy to monetize the SI name at this point, one would have figured that Meredith would have been able to do it, rather than cutting bait after buying it and pawning it off on some bottom feeders.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2020
    The Big Ragu, May 19, 2020
    #500
  9. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    Apparently, the writers don't even care. Mark Blaudschun yesterday wrote about BC athletic director Martin Jarmond moving to UCLA.
    In the third graf, he wrote: What it did to (sic) was give UCLA's its first minority athletic director and it left Boston College to deal with the issue of relevance once again.
    Shortly after this was posted, a reader commented that Jarmond will replace Dan Guerrero, who was the AD for 18 years. Guerrero was, is and will continue to be Hispanic. That mistake was caught by a reader early and has not been fixed. A day later, it is still not fixed.
    Blaudschun is with a quartet of "veteran" writers that formed TMG Sports after layoffs/buyouts a few years ago. Recently, they were absorbed into the Maven/SI. My subscription will not be renewed.
     
    ChrisLong, May 19, 2020
    #501
  10. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    In theory, the Sports Illustrated brand is strong enough to be monetized in more than enough ways to make tidy profits. In reality, that was true in 2005, but no longer. As the core product was whittled down, the brand identity suffered accordingly. Face it, SI's name resonates mostly for people over 45. For anyone younger, not so much. They've seen less of its glory, and relatively more of its decline and fall.
     
    Michael_ Gee, May 19, 2020
    #502
  11. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    Our son is 23 and knows nothing of SI other than what I might mention about "years ago" or show him from some issues that I kept. The publication is about as relevant to anyone 35 or younger as Life was to me when I was their age. It's generational.

    But it still sucks to see a brand like SI with such a history fall into what it has become.
     
    SixToe, May 19, 2020
    #503
  12. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    Finally pulled the trigger and cancelled my subscription. First time without SI since 1974, when my older brother got it for his 9th birthday.
     
    Webster, May 19, 2020
    #504
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