SJ Transactions: The Sporting News ***

Copyright-jack aside, Derek Samson's some good, good people.

 

I prefer Odd Reader's Digest and Uneven Reader's Digest.

 

Which explains Even's decline

 

Not to mention KC may soon have an opening...

Oh wait. McClatchy. Never mind.

 

Didn't see anybody make a "joke" about it. I don't doubt D'Alessio's "ambitious" plans. I do, however, doubt the willingness of any media owner these days to be "ambitious." And nothing the magazine's new owners have done so far indicate such a willingness; rather, their actions indicate a cost-cutting across the board, much of it done by jettisoning people and replacing them with fewer. And all this is said, by the way, with great respect for D'Alessio's talent and reputation. He's an upgrade of exponential quality and I'm sure he'll hire (a few) good people. What those people will be allowed to do in the sense of real ambition is the question. A bi-weekly of sports? Can he make the website a daily presence? To succeed on any ambitious scale at either of those things -- taking on ESPN the Mag? taking on a thousand websites/bloggers/aggregators? -- would require more than top editors. It would require millions of dollars of investment. Who's making such investments today?

 

I can say unequivocally that most, if not all, of the aforementioned inside scoop is wrong. Definitely wrong on budget. Dead wrong on staff, which is about to grow by double digits. Page count is wrong. He did get the Charlotte part right. I don't work there -- now anyway -- but I know people who do. There is some big stuff about to happen. And they seem highly committed. Think about it: In a couple week, 3 hires, all key pieces of Triple Crown sections of 2007-08.

 

Leave a dozen people in St. Louis. Hire a dozen in Charlotte, they're about even.

Magazine will be produced at most half as often. (After earlier being ordered by the new owners to be 56 pages, not 64.) If there's a "budget" increase, it mostly comes from that cost-cutting in production.

Five pages of ads this week (4 of them NASCAR stuff), not the 42 of SI.

 

Indeed -- the pride of Valley. Good guy by any measure.

 

Multi-year contracts at crazy dollars can work.

Ask The National.

 

American Business Journals, which owns TSN, had a $400 million profit last year with its city-based biz papers. I think ABJ knows a thing or two about creating a profitable product.