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Sporting News Today no longer free

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by TheHacker, Apr 3, 2010.

  1. henryhenry

    henryhenry Member

    sporting news is the American Motors of sports media.

    Ipana, Burma Shave, Dreft, Halo, Lustre Creme.

    a once-decent brand run into the ground by dim management.
     
  2. Torri

    Torri New Member

    henryhenry is the Glenn Beck of SportsJournalists.com posters. (Sorry, the best idiot reference I could come up with).

    As a subscriber for two decades, Sporting News has never been better. There might be an abundance of first-person stuff, I agree, but I think it works 9 times out of 10. I disagree with the earlier coachspeak comment. I actually find the majority of the guest-written stuff pretty compelling. Despite a tiny staff — just counted 14 names in the "staff writers" section of the latest issue — there is a ton of great stuff in there. And a lot of smart people making it go.

    Say what you want about the idea to charge for their Today product but it's unique and pretty well-done, IMO.

    Their website sucks but I've heard rumblings that's next on John Rawlings replacement's list. I've been damn impressed with what he's done so far, the site aside.
     
  3. FuturaBold

    FuturaBold Member

    i give sporting news today a big thumbs up -- i really like the concept and i'll likely keep my subscription ...

    maybe i'm crazy but i really do see something like this as the wave of the future for newspapers, especially if the iPads and such take off in popularity ... you get something that looks and feels like a newspaper/magazine but it's designed to fit your monitor (instead of clunky newspaper e-editions that are hard to navigate since they are vertical broadsheet sized) ... i can see struggling newspapers dropping their print editions to once or twice a week and doing something like this the other days to save costs and keep their newspaper "feel." ...

    I know the college magazine where I used to work has dropped from 20 print issues a year to like 6 or 8 ... but is doing something similar to SNT on a weekly basis during football season, twice a month during basketball ...
     
  4. mediaguy

    mediaguy Well-Known Member

    Wish it would do well, but the online version rarely told me things I didn't know already. Love the magazine and will continue to subscribe to that -- great in-depth stuff there.
     
  5. flexmaster33

    flexmaster33 Well-Known Member

    kudos, and I hope this works out.

    the internet side of our business needs to either charge for the content it disperses or the other option is to simply use the web as a bare-bones teaser for our print products.

    It's time to stop blasting holes in our own ship by giving away our work for free. Do you see a Dreyer's worker standing in the ice cream aisle handing out free tubs of ice cream?
     
  6. jackfinarelli

    jackfinarelli Well-Known Member

    Forget the posturing and posing here. The market will determine the wisdom of this undertaking in the next year.

    Personally, I think this move is closer to a "death spiral" that it is to a "salvation". But that is just an opinion and time will show the outcome here.

    Stay thirsty, my friends...
     
  7. zebracoy

    zebracoy Guest

    It's hard to blame many of us for being optimistic knowing what's on the line should it be a success.
     
  8. jackfinarelli

    jackfinarelli Well-Known Member

    I did not intend to blame anyone for anything. I simply thought that suggesting a "wait-and-see" attitude might not be a bad idea...
     
  9. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    I read it for the forst week. I thought it was pretty cool. Of course, I haven't read it in months and won't be paying for it.
     
  10. As The Crow Flies

    As The Crow Flies Active Member

    I'll preface this by saying I really, really, really hope it works out.

    But truthfully, I don't feel good about it. I've read it several times over the past few months, and while it's pretty cool, there's not a whole lot in it that you can't get at ESPN.com, etc. (Or at least that's my perception.) I'm just not sure how many people are going to be willing to pay for it even though the price is reasonable, especially considering there's such a glut of free stuff out there.

    Like someone said, time will tell. I'd love to be proven wrong.
     
  11. flexmaster33

    flexmaster33 Well-Known Member

    As long as there's free stuff out there it won't work...no reason to pay for this site when you can go to espn.com or si.com and get the same info for the most part. The pay-for-web may work on a smaller scale where local news goes out through fewer outlets.
     
  12. clutchcargo

    clutchcargo Active Member

    SN Today is a great deal. They have enough of their own writing and analysis to make it unique, and what's so bad about all the wire copy? Can't complain about consolidating it all in one place like this----sure, much of it is free elsewhere, but thast means a lot of hunting and piecemealing. Forget that. I like it all in one place. This is easily worth $2.99 a month.
     
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