Sports Illustrated layoffs

Single-issue mags are a huge thing now too, from issues on The Beatles to the Civil War to thyroid health. A lot of them I have no idea how they sell--is a Johnny Cash fan really going to spend 15 bucks for a mag on him when they probably have read everything about the man?--but lots of companies now focus on that market. I work on several sports ones and they are fairly fun to do and pay well and on time so I can' t complain, though I will sometimes (in the comfort of my own home) gently mock the concepts. Like, do we need another mag on Michael Jordan? Sure, why not!

 

I work in hockey and haven't looked at a print copy of The Hockey News in years.

 

Outside of the Hockey News is there a magazine covering one of the four major spectator sports producing a print product such as the Football News? Is the Basketball Times still around (that was a magazine that had great columnists). I moved and and never got around to renewing my subscription.

I can see how golf periodicals survive. The equipment makers will still support them with advertising dollars

 

Basketball Times is defunct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_Times

If I recall correctly, they had almost no advertising, but also no web presence. The latter is probably the only way to go in the 21st century.

 

I have the opposite problem. I've begged for an E-edition and we're focused on print. The good news is I've got some great-looking clips in hard copy as a result. The bad news is so many people don't want a hard copy anymore.

 

If I remember correctly Basketball Times tried an e-edition and then gave up on it. The lack of a web presence really hurt it. Columns I enjoyed in the 90's seemed dated in 2010 because of the immediacy of the internet.

Also, I am trying to remember if Dan Wetzel worked there at the end of the Larry Donald era and before John Akers took over?

 

A bit of a tangent on something I was thinking about this weekend after reading BASW 2003.

Isn't it crazy that S.L. Price doesn't really have a full-time gig right now? He's only 62 years old and is still one of the greatest longform writers ever. What he wrote decades ago still holds up as excellent copy. That era of sports writing still stands the test of time but you'd be hard-pressed to find people doing that kind of work right now, aside from a couple of outliers.

 

Price was one of my favorites. Good storyteller and always a smooth, easy-to-read style.

Been wondering where he ended up, and it's ... nowhere? That ain't right.

 

Apparently he's writing a lacrosse book?

 

While you KNEW Gary Smith wrote an article by the third paragraph, I don't know how many Price stories I read where I'd look back at the byline, and say "Oh, Scott Price!" He never wrote the same story twice the same way. Not to diss Smith, his "immersive" style of narrative made for compelling reading of things you'd normally think would be dry.

 

Holy shit. I was at a used book sale over the weekend, spotted BASW 2003 and bought it for $1.50. I loved the Plaschke story about the Vietnam vet golfer.