USA Today Sports Weekly

Does anyone know what the cirulation numbers are? How well is it doing? How many of you have ever read it? Does it remind you a little of the National? Could we call it a weekly attempt at the National? Or is it the predessor to the Sproting News? At this point, I perfer USATSW to TSN. Thoughts.

 

My brother-in-law - who is fairly discriminating - really likes this publication, for what it's worth

 

I liked it better when it was Baseball Weekly.

 

Me too. I'd almost prefer to see this publication folded and the news absorbed into the main paper (you know, maybe a baseball-only mini section Wednesday, football only on Friday, etc.). It just seems too crowded. I DO love the special pubs USA TODAY puts out under the Sports Weekly banner.

 

<i>"Does it remind you a little of the National?"</i>

Only in the sense it's the same size, printed on newsprint and sold at newsstands.

Come on, The National was a fabulous but doomed experiment built around hiring the best writers and giving them the time and space to excel.

USAT Weekly is a low-budget afterthought that serves as a catch-all for bland notes and the occasional decent feature.

The best stuff used to be from Bob Nightengale, but he seems to have disappeared from the Weekly pages.

 

I like it and read it regularly, but the writing is not even close to the level of The National.

And I agree with Shaggy. It was better as Baseball Weekly.

 

Know someone who used to work there. Circulation was below Sporting News a couple years ago, but not padded with those hyper-cheap subscriptions. Most copies were sold full price on newsstands. Somewhere in the 300,000 range, he said. But they took a hit when they added NASCAR and now that it's gone again, those numbers might not have returned. My friend said it was always profitable before the newsroom mergers with USA Today, but not by very much.

Most staffers thought it was better as Baseball Weekly also. Now the majority of the content is stuff from Sports Exchange, which is all over the map in terms of quality.

 

I fondly remember the summer days when I would read baseball weekly cover to cover. I also remember how sad I was when I saw it at the newstand and Peyton Manning was on the cover.

 

Exactly. And they tried to get all artsy with their baseball stats packages. In doing so, they eliminated some of the stats I wanted. So I quit reading it. But it shore looks purtier now. :

 

Adding the NFL was a last-ditch effort to save BBW. The baseball strike killed circulation, which always plummented anyway once football season started.

 

It looks like the team notes are sportsxchange, but the columns and features are all USAT staff.

I keep passing it by in the 7-11, looking at the cover and stuff and falling asleep. Boring look to the publication these days.

 

I keep thinking USAT itself might need a makeover, but maybe it's just me.