SJ Transactions: The Sporting News ***

Paul Allen also knows how to make money. He used to own The Sporting News, too. Couldn't do squat with it.

 

How to make money the Paul Allen way: 1. Get an exclusive license to produce the operating system for the original IBM PC. 2. Realize you won't make the production deadline. 3. Buy and rebadge somebody else's product. 4. When clones come out, make deals to put your rebadged product on them, too. 5. Rake in the dough.

 

Pesky durn facts, according to Hoover's, an outfit that tracks and analyzes American businesses:
**
Key American City Business Journals Financials
Fiscal Year-End December
2007 Sales (mil.) $87.8 (est.)
2007 Employees 1,500
**
Hard to make $400 million profit when you bring in $87.8 million. At a respectable 10 percent margin, ACBJ may have made $8.78 million.

 

Did somebody just get served?

 

I think the big kids call that "business."

 

The big kids call that "failing to have an original idea." Which kind of explains why his company couldn't do anything new with TSN.

 

Are you kidding? They did plenty of new things. Nothing worked.

 

Allen himself had no interest in the magazine. His company offered nothing in editorial/promotional/advertising help. It thought of sports as "content" for a cable television-based "wireless revolution." When it couldn't make that revolution happen -- one of many Allen failures post-Bill Gates -- it no longer needed content. So with layoffs (of editorial staff), sell-offs (of radio) and kill-offs (of ancillary products), Allen's people prettied up the bottom line in hopes of dumping the thing. It took two, three years before anyone bit. Hello, ACBJ.

 

Mrs. Editude saw the magazine on the counter this week (free subscription), and her first comment: Where are the ads? Followed by: Didn't they used to do baseball? The concept of a daily web presence is fine, but do we need another must-check general sports site? I'm missing the niche/market here.

 

can't remember the last time somebody mentioned TSN.
the receptionist in my dentist's office said nobody touches them.

 

Interesting that Playboy was mentioned earlier. It occurs to me that it's a microcosm of what's going on in the media industry. Anyone who wants it can get the major selling point of Playboy's product online for free. There are good articles in the mag -- hey, I read'em, OK? -- but there isn't enough other content to keep it from slipping.