Joe Posnanski to SI full-time?

Good for Pos, and good move by SI. I definitely look forward to reading more of his stuff.

 

Wasn't all that long ago that newspaper sports editors would sit around and lust over their "dream team" potential hires. I'd hear Joe's name a lot at my shop, even though the place never was going to make an offer or have a chance.

Do the SEs even bother with such fantasyland stuff these days? Never mind hiring "dream teamers," many of them aren't permitted to hire anyone and instead hope they don't have to dump too many of the stiffs they already have. It's like they've gone from Yankees dreams to Pirates reality, the whole damn newspaper industry.

Good for Joe and good for SI. Since I'm a reader who doesn't give a hoot about "hyperlocal" in most cases, the daily newspapers' obsession with that is only furthering their obsolescence in our household.

 

She-eet, the columnist/"sports editor" at MY former rag managed to rope the powers-that-be into a six-figure salary! And, as far as I know, is still "earning" that wage.

rb

 

Good for Joe.

I've never met him, but he's probably the only writer in America who could get me to read a single word about the KC Royals.

 

Joyce DeWitt's DUI from weeks ago is the most-read story on the kc site?

Wowza.

 

She may not rank ahead of Greinke in Joe's eyes, but he probably still ranked her ahead of Lincecum.

 

If the Star was paying less than $250,000 a year for Poz... they got a bargain.

I imagine that, over the past two years or so, the beancounters got tense at the cost of Whitlock & Posnanski. That has to be about 450-500k for the two.

 

This is more likely the range we're talking about.

 

Congrats to Joe. Not only he is one of the best - if not the best - columnists in the country, he's as nice a guy as he is talented, and as we all know, that's a rarity in this business. As for his pay, it's none of our business. I'll just say that whatever the Star was paying him, he was worth every penny and more. Trust me, the readers will miss him. They'll still read the paper, and the circulation numbers won't drop, but the Star won't be the same without him. And anyone who disputes that is clueless about the connection a truly great writer makes with his audience.

 

A few years ago if the Star would have required a subscription to read online, I would have shelled out the bucks in heartbeat. I don't live where I can get the print edition delivered to my house, but I certainly would have paid to read Posnanski, Jason King, Jeff Passan, Wright Thompson and all the other write about my favorite teams.

These days there's no way I would pay for what's left. Even the great writers that are still there don't seem to have the space or the resources to do great work. Even though it's free, I go to KansasCity.com less and less all the time now.

 

The Star is lucky that Posnanski is willing to keep writing for them. If he completely disappeared out of the blue, I imagine some subscriptions would, too.

At least by him lingering, readers will stick around in case he does write for them one Sunday...