Sporting News Today thread (what do you think?)

Because it doesn't cost anything to produce. No newsprint, paper, delivery fees, printing presses, etc.

 

I've always thought The Sporting News sucked and looked gaudy and cheap. However, I kind this idea. It's an interesting concept, and I commend The Sporting News for trying something different. I look forward to seeing what they can do as they get further established.

One thing I found surprising: I had no idea Eichenberger left Newsday.

 

The technical end of it worked for me. I didn't have any problems viewing it.

In terms of content, we'll have to give them a chance to really get it going to see what it'll be like. First impression was that there was a bunch of stuff in there that I already knew by 10-something this morning when I read it. I'm not sure there's much need for box scores. But when you're not worried about how much space you're working with, I guess it's no big deal.

If they use some imagination and do strong enterprise and advances, this could work pretty well. If they're too firmly rooted in the old-school Sporting News ideal of covering every team, every sport with notes and box scores, it'll be sort of ho-hum -- not bad on occasion, but probably not something I'll look at every day.

Also, they could probably do a lot more with the design. A lot of pages looked like gray masses of type, which I suppose is better than the multi-font, multi-hued, multi-directional chaos of a certain other sports magazine. But overall, I think it's cool they're trying something. I'm interested to keep with it for a while and see how it goes.

 

I see one ad, not counting house ads.

 

Eichenberger had moved from being sports editor to Web guy (to shepherd the move of preps stuff to the Web). Then he left. I had heard he was leaving the business.

 

I don't have anything like that. Opens in a Firefox tab with a custom navigation bar inside the tab.

And we wonder why the news industry is struggling.

I somewhat don't like this format. Not quite a PDF, I apparently can't download it and printing doesn't seem to work quite right.

 

I wanted to like it. To be blown away.

I just saw an online representation of Sporting News magazine. Maybe it'll get better.

Oh, and I had no problems at all with having it work.

 

I like it, had no tech issues with reading it and it has a lot of good info.
There's some potential here, give it a few months.

 

OK, finally got on and looked it over.

It's not groundbreaking by any means, but it's a decent read.

I agree with what others have said... the true test will come when the crew does feature stories and enterprise work and doesn't just rehash notes and gamers.

The nice thing? No space restrictions. Today's edition is 34 pages, counting the house ads. The editor has said it will be no less than 24 pages every day. For people who are reading 6 and 8-page sports sections in major cities, this is a relief (although it is meant to be a national paper).

I'd have moved the baseball up towards the front (but I'm a baseball fan, so I'm biased)... the football training camp burning questions were ones we'd mostly known about, but it looks like there will be notes every day or every other day once things get started.

Good to see offseason coverage of sports as well.

Overall, not groundbreaking but still a decent read.

 

It has a USA Today feel. I sorta like it.

 

I like it, but it just makes me miss The National even more.

 

I'd say it's a B to start. I can't imagine that they'll keep up with so much content through the rest of the year and every single day, but I was impressed with what I did see.

Then again, I skimmed absolutely every page. I don't think I spent more than six minutes on it. We'll see how high or low that number gets each day - or if I even open it.