Sporting News eliminates yearbooks

... and a source of freelance income for me. :'(

Got an e-mail today stating that the annual yearbooks will be folded into the magazine from here on out.

Understandable move, considering the shelf life of these yearbooks are so short any more. I know the college football previews are due in early April and college basketball in early July, and those deadlines make the books outdated almost the second they hit the shelves.

So that leaves Lindy's, Athlon and Phil Steele, right? Am I missing someone?

 

I'm taking a freelance hit as well. I had my gig for a long time. Hate to see it go.

 

Jesus Christ. Just announce the end, Sporting News. Now how long before baseball mags come out?

 

Monday

 

Eliminates only remaining things I bothered to purchase from them. See ya!

 

Oh wow. The one thing I thought they still did pretty well. Too bad.

 

Darn. I had Sporting News yearbooks dating back to the early 1980s. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey. Always enjoyed them and thought they were well put together.

 

No fault of anyone here, of course, but over the past few years they've been so thin, and with the boom in the Internet and free agency, so far behind what's going on, an automatic buy became "why bother?"

 

I bought Sporting News, Athlon and Lindy's, minimum, every year for college basketball. I thought Sporting News generally had the best content, while Athlon had the most content and Lindy's was a nice balance.

 

The deadline for the baseball yearbook used to be mid-December.

 

The college football deadline for some of those magazines usually came during the NCAA Tournament.

Hard to believe that something Garry Howard is running isn't wildly successful.

 

Used to always pick up the baseball one, there was something about seeing in on the newsstand in February or whenever it came out and knowing that spring was mercifully around the corner!

Picked up Phil Steele's pro and college football books this year for the first time but was just overwhelmed by how much reading was in there. I'm not that serious about betting football anymore to wade through all the abbreviations. Will be going back to Lindy's and Athlon's next year.