Huggy said:
I used to work with Mike Dunphy, the guy who ran the publishing company.
When I was in the hockey business, he somehow convinced the team I worked for to hire him as its photographer. They bought him a very expensive camera and all the toys and then he proceeded to blow off our Sunday afternoon home games to go to Buffalo (with the team's camera) and shoot the Bills. Or he'd decide he didn't want to make the two-hour commute from his house to our home games.
Eventually the got rid of him and after a lengthy battle got all their camera stuff back. I always thought the guy was full of **** and can't believe he conned the NFL into working with him. Like others, I can't believe the NFL didn't do this in house or at least with a bigger US company.
I don't know Mike Dunphy and had never heard of Dauphin Media Group when this got announced. But my phone was blowing up that day because of what I do. When I asked around, the only thing anyone knew was that he had done a magazine with some personality from HGTV that I had never heard of and that had folded and was now embroiled in law suits.
The NFL has no interest in doing a print magazine itself. They are in the business of taking people's money, not taking risks that are likely to lose money. It is costly to start and market and there is more potential for failure than success.
I never found out the details of the arrangement, but given how costly it would be to market the thing, do direct mail, get it on newsstands, and deal with printing and mailing in a changing magazine environment (as more and more goes digital), the idea on the face of it was insanity. The typical NFL fan -- does he want a monthly magazine filled with fluff, or does he want timely news, fantasy football updates, etc.?
The only possible explanation I could come up with still doesn't make much sense to me. The NFL is usually very careful about guarding its reputation. But maybe it went after a buck? If it did, this would have been pure licensing money. They get paid a licensing fee to use their name. I am sure they put limits on the content. That way they take no financial risk and some idiot pays them to use their name.
From a reputation standpoint, though, if that was the case, I am wondering why there wasn't anyone there thinking about how bad that company could make them look if the execution sucked (and that was very likely). The liklihood of a print start up like that succeeding -- without a lot of money to blow through first -- is nil. And when you work with an unknown like that, you are putting your reputation in his hands. So now, the NFL looks bad for launching a magazine and then folding it a couple of issues later.
