Changes at the Sporting News?

Clever the way you build in an excuse for failure -- "business-related effect" -- before anyone suggests a way to make the magazine engaging, perhaps relevant. That, Clutch, is the kind of thinking that made Sporting News a fifth-place runner in a three-horse race. I believe in the Ray Kinsella theory. Build it and they will come. Build a magazine worth reading, the business will come. Sporting News once did that, and there's no reason it can't do it again. All it takes is, yes, imagination.

I'm not talking about off-the-wall stories and design. I saw this month's GQ with a cover line selling, "The Three Most Important Men in the NBA -- And They Aren't LeBron, Kobe, and Shaq." Hmmm. I was intrigued. So while standing in an airport news shop, I flipped through what seemed like 100 pages of high-dollar ads to find the table of contents. Had me hooked with a cover line, didn't they? Turned out the story was on the TNT studio crew, Charles, Kenny, and Ernie. No reason that couldn't be done by Sporting News if an editor there was smart enough 1) to see the story, and 2) find a writer who fit it.

That, Clutch, is imagination. And I guarantee you there is no writer at Sporting News brighter, funnier, edgier and with greater appeal to the 18-34 demographic than a dozen bloggers I've read. I'd create a Blogosphere Page. Get their one-liners in the magazine with links to their blogs. I don't care if they're not journalists. They're humorists. Give 'em a page, it'll be the best read page in the magazine.

Steal from PEOPLE. Human interest has sold since the beginning of time. Sporting News once ruled out any story idea that went outside the playing field. It still does for the most part, maybe no longer by edict as much as by inertia. One powerful human iinterest story a week is all I ask, something to leaven all the Xs and Os.

Get rid of the notes. They're anachronistic, untimely, and, worse, boring. There's not another weekly special-interest magazine on any subject that gives (what?) 50 percent of its space to news that's no longer news and to idle speculations that are rehashed speculations for anyone interested enough to care about them in the first place.

Takes imagination to do that, Clutch, to get rid of notes when surveys have told you your readers want them. You have to see what your new readers will want, not what the old readers wanted last week. Give your new readers a journal of a working day with a professional athlete, with a sports writer, a cheerleader. Put the reader on top of a Zamboni. TV has cameras inside NASCAR drivers' nostrils, but I've never read a piece that puts my chest against that steering wheel. Explain to me why I should give a shit about Ultimate Fighting.

Get rid of cliche lines on the cover. Let SI have that. Give me a cover line that demands the reader turn to the table of contents to find out what THAT is about.

And go hire the five best 22-yr-old sportswriters in America. Throw 'em in the deep end.

 

More valid ideas there than TSN has had in the last five years.

 

I don't get why the writers have to be 22 years old, but other than that, go get 'em, tiger.

 

Why 22-yr-olds?

Because Clutchcargo asked for specific examples of how imagination could make the Sporting News a better magazine.

Takes imagination to identify and hire the five best prospects out there. Get them young, single, and hungry, maybe not 22, maybe 25. Then pair them with an editor who teaches and encourages them to be reporters first, writers second, hell-raisers always.

 

how to save the sporting snooze, by jaredk.

worth a try. what have they got to lose?

 

Long-time listener, first-time caller. Never thought I'd post. But since Kindred reads this, figured I would. Every year when my TSN subscription comes up, I ALMOST walk away. When Rosenthal left, that was my closest brush with pulling the plug. But at least it still had Kindred. I literally bought it for one page a week the past two years.
Sadly, I'm done now.

 

Thank you.
And I'll say here that if and when jaredk remakes the Sporting News , I'll be there.

 

I may be the only one, but I'd love to see more in-depth "Xs and Os" reporting. George Will and others have done a fair amount of it for baseball, but I would like more of it and I'd like much more in other sports. Making it "interesting enough" is a factor, however.

 

Freaky... I was about to post that that was the last time I had seen one... getting the oil changed.

 

weird idea. if you were a movie reviewer would you expect your readers to care about the type of camera used to shoot the film? and the camera angles and sound technology? when you eat a sausage you don't want to know what's in it - you just want to enjoy it. when you read a novel do you want to know how the author typed? when you watch an auto race do you want to know what kind of wrench the mechanic used? when you admire a beautiful woman do you want to know how she cleans her pores? weird stupid idea - seems like a suicidal approach for a magazine.

 

As I said, I may be the only one who thinks this way, but your analogies are inapt. I'm no racing fan, and while I wouldn't care "what kind of wrench the mechanic used," I would care about how the pit crew prepared and did it's job. How do they practice? What times do they target? Hearing (or reading) about "a good pit stop" wouldn't be good enough for me. In football, I'm interested and hearing (or reading) about the comparative strengths and weaknesses of 3-4 and 4-3 defenses. I'm more interested in how Peyton makes his reads than in how he feels. In my view, that's analysis. There's far too little of it in every sport and in both broadcast and print. That said, maybe you're right and I am weird and stupid.

 

One of the most interesting stories I ever read was an in-depth look at ONE PLAY, a touchdown pass by Brett Favre.

Story started out by setting the stage (score, yard-line, down and distance, etc.), then went into what play was called, why it was called, what they expected the defense to do, what audible options were available, the roles of the various players in the play, the adjustments (blocking and route running) that had to be made during the play, the QB's progressions and thinking during the entire time and, finally, the execution of the play.

A story could not have been more X's and O's if it tried. Yet done correctly, it worked.

And it sure beat the "athlete overcomes crappy childhood/athlete overcomes injury/athlete redeems himself after making poor life decisions" features that I have read 23,000 times.