Changes at the Sporting News?

It has suddenly started showing up at the house and we haven't paid for it. No clue whether someone signed us up, whether it's a freebie (doubtful) or what ...

 

Whenever we critique newspapers we eventually get around to talking about who can spend the money to travel for elective coverage. Example: The Kansas City Star will spend money to go anywhere it thinks it can have one or more staffers write a great story or produce a compelling project. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch believes travel means looking at the road schedule for the Cardinals and Rams. SI and ESPN the mag will spend to go where great stories are. TSN can't do that and the editors know it. Which means they can never hope to compete with the other two. Which means their only hope is to carve a niche they can fill with the budget they have. They're trapped. The niche is evaporating. But they can't go bigger. Their only alternative is to re-create the niche in a way that allows them to survive while still running things on the cheap.
The editors and writers are more deserving of our sympathy than worthy of our scorn. They are like a 40,000 cir newspaper sports section trying to compete with the Dallas Morning News in its heyday.
And that's very, very tough.

 

Curiously, just after I read Scalper's good analysis, the e-mail delivered an interesting note to all Sporting News staffers from Steve Gietschier, the company's archivist (the e-mail system must not know I've been disappeared )....
***

This Saturday, March 17, will mark the 121st birthday of Sporting News.
The issue we put to bed on Sunday night will begin our 122nd year of
publication, uninterrupted.

Volume I, Number 1, appeared on Wednesday, March 17, 1886. A single copy
cost five cents, and a year's subscription was $2.00. The first issue
had eight pages, more than two of them devoted to ads. There was
baseball in the first issue, of course, but other sports as well. We
were, in fact, an all-sports weekly for about a quarter-century before
we became baseball-exclusive until 1942.
***

 

Steve Geitschier is a member of SABR, and very good people. He's been a big help to many baseball writers.

 

Why TSN would part company with Dave Kindred boggles my mind, and I say this separate from the fact I used to work under the same masthead he did at another publication. He's got a great voice, wonderful versatility and whenever I hear TSN mentioned, I always think of Dave first -- even though I haven't read it in at least five years.

Everyone has a readymade solution to help TSN survive and perhaps grow. It certainly has the brand name. I grew up with it in the 60s and 70s, soaking up the likes of Dick Young, Leonard Koppett, Joe Falls and Jerome Holtzman week after week. It was fun, informative and at time irreverent without being crass or tackly. It was a must read, even camping out in the pup tent in the backyard reading it half the night with a flashlight. My dorm room at college was plastered with covers.

I would just say that TSN should focus solely on MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL, as well as college hoops and college football, make it great analysis with a touch of irreverence, get Bill James-types (discover and develop them yourself, TSN) writing extensively about each sport, forget the boxscores but find new and extensive ways to present stats/agate, emphasize great photography and don't try to be all things to all people. Also strike deals with 25-30 best columnists scattered nationwide, who aren't syndicated or otherwise tied down, and run their best column each week. And hire back Kindred.

 

What happened to Dan Pompei? Did he leave on his own? Where's he going?

 

jaredk - I miss your 22-year-old cutoff by one year - am I not eligible? =p

All jokes aside, there are some very valid ideas in your post - notably about the bloggers. I will admit, even though I am part of the younger generation, I do not see them credible in the least bit and would not have been a proponent of this idea just a few weeks ago....but since then, I have started reading deadspin.com, thebiglead, and a few others weekly - and yes, I still think they are not credible (at least not 100%), but they make great reads and woud surely make a magazine stand out if they devoted at least one page to some of these sites.

By the way - didnt mean to offend any bloggers with this post...I am just a young kid that is old school...sorry.

 

Clutch
What you've described is what they try to do now, I think. except they've added NASCAR to the mix.
The problem is, they haven't hired the right people to do incisive, irreverent work. That's where leadership comes in, identifying and hiring those people. It's also where the bare-bones budget comes in, because good people don't come cheap. That's why I tried in my earlier post to devise a plan that makes use of the staff they've got, just turning their work in a new direction with a new tone.
I really like your columnists idea because, with sharp editing, that can give the magazine a meaty feel that's not there now.The Sporting News now stutters. All those 3-4 graf items are the journalistic equivalent of ADD.
And, Jam -- I wouldn't count on my Blogosphere Page for credible journalism in the way of reporting, opnion, or analysis. It would be purely for humor. I'd make it the Comedy Central of sports.

 

Folks, I know TSN has become a favorite to rip on because it is in a world of financial pain.

None of that problem is the fault of the writers there. Those guys and gals still work hard and do good stuff. I have no doubt they are hurting deeply because of the problems the mag has onthe business end. Seeing good friends and colleagues let go can't be easy. And many of them post here -- some with their real name, some anonymously. Insulting them because of the bad decisions made by the marketing department and business strategists is low class.

The problems are in the business office, primarily, and with some upper level editors/managers that didn't come up with the right plan to compete in the changing market. It was not with the writers -- Kindred, Pompei, DeCourcy and others are still relevent in many ways. If TSN had a billion dollars worth of free marketing on ESPN, they'd probably not be in the same situation. SNRadio doesn't count.

So, to a degree, I agree with JaredK. TSN needs a remake of some sort, but the current suits aren't going to like it because it probably involves cleaning house in their department. Add fresh blood, and money, there as well as some among the writers and see what happens.

 

Are there really five 22-year-old writers who could improve the magazine? I have no doubt their writing might sparkle, but depth? Insight? Perspective?

Then again, it has been a long time since I was 22. What the hell do I know anymore?

 

Long time since I was fresh, too.....the 22 was an arbitrary number chosen to represent new eyes that see a world some of us have forgotten.....I guarantee you I could read 20 big-time college newspapers and 20 small-market newspapers and find 3-4-5 writers who, paired with the right editor, could bring life to a national publication gasping for breath...would take me two weeks....

 

I can buy that, especially with the paired-with-the-right-editor part.