The Sporting News--now with extra fail!

Sporting News Radio is a bigger waste of money.

And it's free.

 

Is that blowhard Bob Kemp still with SNR?

 

Thank God, no. He punched out for Arizona about 6 years ago. They had Kevin Wheeler, who is now with KMOX. They now have this dude who plays Enigma on a loop.

 

I don't even know how I got a sub to TSN, but I do remember getting the NFL conference championships preview issue on the Monday after the games. Now that Kindred's gone, each issue goes into the trash unread. Can't think of a sports publication that has gone from greatness to uber-fail like TSN.

 

I think they are transforming into a NASCAR delivery service. They seem to expend more effort covering the Good Ol Boys than anything else.

As proof that the best things in life aren't always free, I made the mistake of getting on their email list for NASCAR stories last year in the mistaken belief my paper might actually run one of their items (ever) and now it's like a bad virus. I get 4-5 "stories" a day, notices that stories are coming, notices that stories aren't coming, etc.

Remember back in the day when they ran all of the baseball boxes and actually used to cover the sport like they cared about it?

 

You can't get anything in TSN that you can't get from various hometown media (for example, Jean-Jacques Taylor was the Cowboys contributor when he was the DMN beat writer). Modern technology has passed TSN as we know it by. At least SI has adjusted somewhat.

 

Maybe if TSN took a step back and became a paper instead of a glossy magazine like they are now.

I am just saying TSN could have a future if it tried to take over the Nation audience or something like that. But like I believe someone said they need beat writers to cover the games not feature writers.

 

In fairness to TSN, their whole old format became obsolete after teh internets. But as F_B pointed out, they've done a horrible job of adapting. Up north, The Hockey News faced a similar challenge, and while the new THN is also too fluffy and ESPN The Magazine-ish for my tastes, they seem to be doing a little better with this whole 21st century thing than TSN.

Man, I remember being a kid and always carrying the current issue of TSN around in my school backpack for lunchtime reading. The stats section was awesome. Seeing TSN now is like seeing an old high school sweetheart gone badly to seed. Instead of "Angel is a centerfold," more like "Angel is an unwashed crack whore with four different colors of hair, not including roots, who will blow winos for five bucks."

 

TSN was the first magazine I ever subscribed to as a kid and at one point I had a stack of 5 years worth of them in my closet in the mid-80s. My mom made me toss them when I left for college.

What's happened to it is disgraceful. It could have become USA Today Sports Weekly before there was a USA Today Sports Weekly. Instead it tried to become a combination of NASCAR This Week and all that is wrong with ESPN The Magazine.