The National Sports Daily

You didn't read everything on a daily basis. Hell, NOBODY read it cover to cover. You picked what you wanted.

Do you read your daily newspaper cover to cover? (Frank can tell you I don't. )

 

I read it from cover to cover and aside from a few centerpiece stories, it was below USA Today. The local stories sucked and many of those were rumor driven piece. I liked the National. I liked the idea. I just didn't see where it was all of that and a bag of chips.

 

One of my cherished possessions is a letter from Frank Deford, who responded to my complaint letter about the lack of late scores in The National. It's probably the best written customer service letter of all time.

 

The one thing I still don't understand about the National is how they could have assembled such a great staff with ambitious goals -- but never had the distribution plan worked out. It seemed as if they were trying to run before they could walk, especially with the added bureaus.

 

One word - GREED.

 

My memory is a little foggy, and I only picked up the paper on occasion, so can somebody tell me . . .

. . . did they ever break a story? A real, honest-to-goodness exclusive?

Seriously, all I remember is centerpieces, columns and 19-pica box scores.

 

I don't remember, either. But they did hire Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter/editor Sonny Rawls, so it clearly was their intent. I remember them being on top of agent-type things in NFL coverage, but big stories I don't remember.

 

I can't remember if they had a Toronto bureau (I doubt it) but The National was available up here in Sept. 1990. I worked downtown at the time and could get it at Union Station (it was hit and miss in the 'burbs). Sometimes it was a day late but I didn't care. I loved it.

I went to Vegas for the Douglas-Holyfield fight in October of that year and bought one the next day out of a box which was cool. I still have a few in the basement...

 

I only just came across this thread today, so for those who are interested, this is available for your viewing.
www.thenationalsportsdaily.blogspot.com I'd love to read some comments.

I'll post more to the blog sometime later on.

Thanks to those who helped me with the paper, including Van McKenzie.

Dan

 

Dan: Really fascinating stuff, especially about the distribution problems and the general wastefulness.

 

Nice work, again, Dan.

 

The "wastefulness" was a symptom, not a cause. The paper didn't die because Feinstein flew the Concord. The year after we closed, Forbes did a cover story on "The World's Richest Latin-American." It was still our guy, Emilio Azcarraga. So money was never the issue, except in this sense: There was NO business plan at the start, and Davila, ostenisbily brought in to replace Price and create such a plan, could see no way to do it that didn't involve spending twice as much money as had already disappeared. By then, Azcarraga's partners in Univision were screaming to stop this mad American project. So El Tigre did. Then he bought out his partners. And took the company public, doubling its value to $3.4 billion. The National was very, very good to Emilio Azcarraga. Make of that what you will.