Tiger 2.0

Ok, some of you need to be brought back to earth.

*Yes, the editor's note was misleading. The story didn't match the hype.

*However, magazines writers have deadlines and editors, too. I'm guessing Garrity had 5,000 words to write no matter how much time he got with Tiger. So spiking the story probably wasn't an option. Garrity had to fill the space, and without much from Tiger, he had to go with his observations. I think that's probably why he told readers he only got 9.5 minutes with Tiger at the beginning of the story. It would've been much worse had he written the story as if he got much more time.

*It doesnt matter how bad the story is. You have to put Tiger on the cover during Masters Week. SI is like every other news organization at this time. That is, they're trying to survive just like everyone else. As an above poster pointed out, Verducci in an umpire uniform won't sell many magazines. Tiger sells. That story was going on the cover no matter what. In fact, it was probably part of the bargaining that got SI those coveted 10 minutes.

*

 

The story still sucked.

And I got mine last Thursday, a week before the Master's was set to start. You couldn't push it a week, get Tiger on the cover this week and go with an NCAA hoops cover last week?

It's not as though the tournament was last weekend, or there wasn't anything else worth putting on the cover going on in the world.

 

Here's what Garrity should have written:

"I followed Tiger Woods around the world for six months and all I didn't even get the lousy t-shirt."

 

thanks for the lesson, bob.

 

Is the 2.0 version the Gandhi one? I hope so.

 

Bob you need some more Enzyte

 

The Verducci story was far superior to the Tiger piece but who is going to sell more magazines, Tiger or Tom V? I too was left feeling there was not a whole lot there. It READ like a business deal with Nike, Team Tiger etc. When you are talking about brokering a deal to get access to a subject something is wrong. The most telling part of the story was Tiger was apparently on the same plane as Garrity but wouldn't give him any more than the 10 minutes? And $30 million for the TW foundation? That seems rather paltry based on his 2006 income alone. Maybe in a backhanded way Garrity was attempting to show the reader how aloof and shut-off Tiger can be. No quotes from good friends, most quotes appeared to be written by a PR hack.

 

Does anyone know the numbers as far as how many magazines SI sells via subscription weekly vs off the rack.

It would be interesting to see how many more magazines are actually sold when Tiger shows up on cover.

 

Ding. Ding. Ding.

 

SI sells one of the smallest percentages in the industry on rack sales. As I recall, they have about 3 million subscribers and sell an average of 100,000 off the rack each week. Still, they do select cover subjects with rack sales in mind, and market accordingly. For example, they probably shipped 20 times their normal load to Florida this week to hype up the Gators' champs cover. It doesn't account for a big portion of revenues, but it's still a consideration.