Changes at the Sporting News?

[Mighty_Wingman]

Gotcha.

 

[Martin_Lane]

For what it's worth, Sporting News subscriptions are advertised on magazinepricesearch.com (which jumps to bestdealmagazines.com) at 60 issues for $5.00 and 120 issues for $7.52. I have used the Web site before, and it has worked fine -- never had a problem. I don't know what the business is behind it, and was always curious. But I never was curious enough to complain.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

I, for one, am tired of seeing references to the $5.95 subscription rates.

Those are frauds committed by petty thieves who have nothing to do with Sporting News. Send them your $5.95 and see if you EVER get a magazine. Better yet, report the fraud to the real Sporting News distribution people. You don't see it with SI and ESPN because their legal departments are at full alert 24/7 and armed with nuclear weapons to obliterate fleas. No such protection exists at the Sporting News. Another of its business-side weaknesses.

I have used the same brokers who offer those deep discounts and have gotten the subscriptions every time. Can't speak specifically to TSN, but they've worked for GQ, New York, ESPN and several others.

So everybody's available cheap, not just Sporting News. Makes my point better than I did.

Lowest rate for SI is 56 issues for $34.50, 62 cents per issue.

Lowest rate for TSN is 60 issues for $5 (8 cents per issue) or 120 issues for $7.52 (6 cents per issue).

So, no, it's not accurate to say "everyone" is giving their product away.

 

[BYH]

Dave, trust me. Someone from TSN goes nutty every time these threads pop up. Like clockwork.

He/she/it does not post under his/her/its real name but the pattern (and nasty PMs I receive from the poster) is too obvious to ignore.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Those are frauds committed by petty thieves who have nothing to do with Sporting News. Send them your $5.95 and see if you EVER get a magazine. Better yet, report the fraud to the real Sporting News distribution people.

So everybody's available cheap, not just Sporting News. Makes my point better than I did.

Really? What point is that?

I think my point was that the penny-ante rate has no relation to a magazine's quality.

Also, I probably should have qualified my earlier post by saying that the suppositions of fraud were told to me by Sporting News customer service people.

No, but when they're quoting a respectable circulation figure, it's worth noting that at least some of it is built on giveaway subscription rates, which generate no revenue and don't appear to interest advertisers.

 

[Dave Kindred]

No, but when they're quoting a respectable circulation figure, it's worth noting that at least some of it is built on giveaway subscription rates, which generate no revenue and don't appear to interest advertisers.

Your last 5 words, Smash, are beyond dispute. The 56-page post-Super Bowl issue had 1 1/2 pages of ads. I'd call that unbelievable except that I've seen it before.

 

[henryhenry]

lacks of ads has been a constant at TSN for years
which begs the question again and again
who is responsible - how do they remain in their jobs - and why can't they fix it?
and if they are squeezing out a small profit and happy with status quo why are we even discussing this?

 

[Dave Kindred]

lacks of ads has been a constant at TSN for years
which begs the question again and again
who is responsible - how do they remain in their jobs - and why can't they fix it?
and if they are squeezing out a small profit and happy with status quo why are we even discussing this?

They don't stay in their jobs. I wrote the column there 15 years under three different ownerships regimes and Lord knows how many publishers/business mgrs/ad chiefs/circulation gurus. The first two owners sold because they were unhappy losing money. The latest is now trying to figure out a way to succeed where the others couldn't.

 

[henryhenry]

it's odd how certain brands fade.
ipana. burma shave. ford. pepsodent. ovaltine. Halo.
sporting news.

like ghosts from another era.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Ovaltine is still a large-selling product, even if "my old pal John Dockery" doesn't drink it anymore.

 

[Dan Rydell]

I worked at The Sporting News for a good while. I share the view that although the people were great, the magazine left a lot to be desired for vision and imagination.

I went there thinking we could take a serious run at SI, and then ESPN, but the creative juice just wasn't flowing in St. Louis.

I always thought that we should have had big-time discussions on how to take them on, but it never came up. We just did what we always did, which was to put three bland stories in the magazine and then all the team reports.

I thought it would be cutting-edge there. A national magazine, so my hopes were high going in. Nothing against the fine people I worked with there, but it felt to me like working for just another run-of-the-mill newspaper, 100,000-size.

Didn't seem like they wanted to be a Big Player. We just pushed it out each week, and it seemed pretty bland to me, but they got pretty excited about it, and that's all you need to know about St. Louis, I guess.

Headlines were dull, even after the weekly group think on that, but we did have a great artist/designer there..........Bill Wilson, I think his name was. Great stuff, heck of a guy also.

 

[mesoanarchy]

....lots of interesting replies. On bloggers. If you want the "real" of the, incorporate bloggers to help expand TSN's brand, here it is....

As a blogger myself, I can safely say there are perhaps five true journalists among bloggers. Most, including those mentioned earlier, write like seventh graders and pursue many "stories" that appeal to ninth-grade minds. It would be extremely difficult to find really young quality writers today (and the quality and mindset of most blogs elucidate this thought) with broad enough worldviews to expand the scope of TSN; yes they are incredibly myopic and socially conservative (read most posts on AOL Fanhouse for examples).

"Taking chances" often means providing alternative perspectives to the staus quo. A magazine like TSN must have a powerful Internet presence to compete in today's sports media world. From the journalism side, the only way to truly accomplish this is to hire fearless writers; those unafraid to be brutally honest; unafraid to espouse an informed opinion that grates against the norm; unafraid to tackle the hypocrisies that are prevalent in the sporting world. Peering around the world of sports media today we generally see 90% staus quo views and 10% farther right of the status quo views - and that 10% which passes for being "contentious" is usually just a farther right view of the 90%. Excuse me for using "right," as in conservative, but when 90% of writers knee-jerk and write "steroids are bad" and the 10% writes, not only are they bad, but Barry Bonds ought to be (fill in the blank of the over-the-top punishment). It's absolute blather performed without proper research and proper introspection before fingertips hit keyboard.

So, TSN's problem, from the journalism side, is that it is uber mainstream - and uber boring. And until it, and other sports media outlets, begin to draw from a talent pool that, in the end, can provide reportage reflecting all sides of issues, the song remains the same. For a publication like TSN to separate itself it must hire people with perspectives to which its leadership may not ascribe..... THAT, is hopping outside the box. And that will invariably draw more and a wider array of readers to a print or online version of TSN, plus give it mainstream cred, "street" cred, and constant buzz cred.... my penny's worth.