Sporting News on life support

One of the proudest moments of my professional life was when TSN featured a freelance story I had written for them on the cover. In 1989, that was a big deal (at least to me).

 

I started getting SI when I was 9. I think my first issue had Mary Decker on the cover as Sportsperson of the Year... I had gotten TSN for a couple years before because you could order it through my school.

That said, I couldn't tell you the last time I picked up a regular issue of TSN. It was probably in a year that started with a 19.

 

A decade ago, TSN became the magazine that gets its Super Bowl preview to you the Tuesday after the game. It was a place that proudly said it ONLY covered Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, and oh yeah, squeeze in NASCAR.

It has had to soften that particular stance in recent years. But while I don't enjoy seeing a media outlet fall, I shed no tears for the demise of this particular dinosaur.

 

I can't remember what I had for lunch a week ago but I am pretty sure this was the first issue of TSN I ever got:

 

Longtime, first time, you know how it goes. Actually reading you guys on this site keeps me hanging on after my departure from the biz a while back.

Sadly, I have heard the same thing as the creator of this post. And there are some good people remaining at SN. Some damn good people. Full disclosure: I'm a former member of said staff. There have been some brutal cuts, beginning with NASCAR division, then there was D'Alessio's "departure," followed by more cuts including the entire yearbooks division (which I hear they may be bringing back), combined with people being fed up and leaving. (They actually just had another online editor leave for NASCAR.com today)

It has been an ultimate downward spiral for the company, some of it poor decisions/hiring, some of it the nature of the beast. I hope everyone comes out on the other side better, but it's going to be a tough December 2012 and all of 2013 for this company.

 

I'd hope they bring back the yearbooks division. Those were quite popular. I missed the college basketball preview book this year (although Lindy and Athlon did a great job with theirs), and I could never fathom why SN would take something away that people liked.

I hope everything works out for SN.

 

I liked what D'Alessio did with the magazine. Really punched it up and made it something different, since it couldn't compete with the SI and ESPN beasts. I haven't seen it since then, though. And it certainly wasn't anything like it used to be.

 

That one really didn't make sense to me either. From what I heard, they were one of the few depts. actually turning a profit. But I think since it was such a small staff (I think just 7 or 8 people), that made it easier to let all of them go (a couple stayed on for other things I believe) to save some other people at the monthly mag/online.

Also was told shortly after those layoffs, there was one of those ill-timed meetings where the results of a earlier in the year "How are things going/How can we improve" company-wide survey were discussed. Reports are that it didn't go well (I know, shocking).

 

Drip is right about the SN demise being about more than one editor. There's plenty of blame to go around upper management over the last two years. The fact that absentee publishers who've been in NY and not NC contributed greatly to unchecked incompetence, ill-advised firings and bad hires. No one's really watching the farm. There's still talent remaining, but so many of the good writers/editors have been let go and in their places (if their places were filled) have been recent college grads and old/new unqualified friends of the EIC who are willing to work long hours for little pay. When I got out, morale was terrible and you could see that things were heading south fast.

 

When I think TSN, first memory that comes to mind is pitching tent out in backyard when I was 10-12 years old, late '60s, and curling up in sleeping bag with flashlight studying each page and boxscore before eventually falling asleep. Dick Young. Jerome Holtzman, etc. When I got to college in my dorm room, I covered the entire sliding doors of my closet with TSN covers.

 

Stan Isle.

 

Back in the day, when it was the true Bible of Baseball, it was must-read for us older folks and box-score lovers.
AOBTD