NYT shutters Play

[Inky_Wretch]

Says MediaBistro ...

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/new_york_times_shutters_play_100882.asp

 

[GBNF]

I still won't change my avatar.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Very unfortunate, as it's just about the only publication I can think of that I would actually read from cover to cover. Never failed to have interesting stuff in it, and it did a great job of making sports accessible on the one hand and providing some real insights on the other.

No surer sign of how screwed up NYT is that it would shed something that "made" money, instead of trying to figure out how to expand the idea and make more money.

 

[spnited]

Very unfortunate, as it's just about the only publication I can think of that I would actually read from cover to cover. Never failed to have interesting stuff in it, and it did a great job of making sports accessible on the one hand and providing some real insights on the other.

No surer sign of how screwed up NYT is that it would shed something that "made" money, instead of trying to figure out how to expand the idea and make more money.

Read again henry:

"I'm am told that last year we more or less broke even, thanks largely to the Nielsen deal for the Olympic issue," he said. (Nielsen bought out the entire issue. It was, according to Bryant, the "largest single day sale in the history of The New York Times.)


That means every other issue lost money and going forward it would continue to lose money.

 

[AD]

that is brutal. taken together with the upcoming cuts at SI? we are looking at very real questions about the future of long-form sports journalism. let's crack this open a bit: espn does a great job with e-ticket. is that the future of long stuff? will it crack open vistas of unlimited space and time to write? or will everybody agree that no one reads long on the web, and in-depth profiles, investigations, etc. will go the way of the dodo?

 

[Birdscribe]

Damn, damn, damn.

This was a publication I looked forward to reading more than any other. The stories were interesting, incredibly written and on subjects that were the definition of out-of-the-box.

I get the NY Times and when I'd see PLAY, the rest of the paper would wait.

Damn, damn, damn.

 

[In Exile]

I always thought a magazine sort of like that, sort of like SI, used as a national Sunday supplement, like a more literate, sports version of Parade, could make it.

 

[playthrough]

That really sucks. I read the most recent issue the other day, the cover story written by one of our most esteemed posters.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Very unfortunate, as it's just about the only publication I can think of that I would actually read from cover to cover. Never failed to have interesting stuff in it, and it did a great job of making sports accessible on the one hand and providing some real insights on the other.

No surer sign of how screwed up NYT is that it would shed something that "made" money, instead of trying to figure out how to expand the idea and make more money.

Read again henry:

"I'm am told that last year we more or less broke even, thanks largely to the Nielsen deal for the Olympic issue," he said. (Nielsen bought out the entire issue. It was, according to Bryant, the "largest single day sale in the history of The New York Times.)


That means every other issue lost money and going forward it would continue to lose money.

Thus my use of the phrase "made" money.

 

[AD]

hey, playthrough: what'd you think of the piece? i felt bad for the macgregor, because he got no access and that is nightmare-time. it felt like the times just felt it HAD to do a favre piece, NOW, and without any way to move the story forward somehow, the writer was reduced to paragraphs of rif. now, i'm not against a good rif here and there, and few can do it as well as macgregor. but all rif and not much new? high-wire act, without much payoff. you can't help but be impressed by the skill. but at this point i can't remember a word.

 

[silent_h]

Terrible news.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Inside Sports.
The National.
Play.

Boneyard's filling up, dammit.

 

[ringer]

I'm saddened as well.

The main problems, I thought, were:
(1) People never knew when it was coming out. Issue dates were all over the map.
(2) There was very little "out of the box" in that magazine. Great writers, but it had the same limited scope of the sports world that SI does now. It tended to cover the same 4-5 pro sports that every other media rams down our throat. Honestly, did we need MORE stories about Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Steve Nash, Bill Parcells?

It would have done better if it was even MORE out-of-the-box.

The best issue was the first one. It was the most unique, and therefore, the most compelling.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Inside Sports.
The National.
Play.

Boneyard's filling up, dammit.

SPORT magazine resides there as well.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Inside Sports.
The National.
Play.

Boneyard's filling up, dammit.

SPORT magazine resides there as well.

Sport was more meat-and-potatoes, not having the pretensions the other three did.

 

[Small Town Guy]

True. But they were the inspiration for the use of all caps in BLOGS

 

[BYH]

I never, ever want to see a publication shut down.

But Sport--or SPORT--was such a shell of its former self at the end that it was almost a mercy killing.

I will say it did bounce back, ever so slightly, from the days of Steve Garvey as the Managing Editor or Publisher or some hideously terrible thing.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Mr Hecht,

Inside Sports.
The National.
Play.

Boneyard's filling up, dammit.

SPORT magazine resides there as well.

Sport was more meat-and-potatoes, not having the pretensions the other three did.

Actually, Sport, back in the late 60s and particularly early 70s, was a great read, very smart. I loved Paul Hemphill's America column but there was lots of excellent writing and a prevailing sense of humour--it reached the 18-35 group better than SI, what you graduated to from comic books (okay, that was me).

o-<

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Mr Hecht,

Inside Sports.
The National.
Play.

Boneyard's filling up, dammit.

SPORT magazine resides there as well.

Sport was more meat-and-potatoes, not having the pretensions the other three did.

Actually, Sport, back in the late 60s and particularly early 70s, was a great read, very smart. I loved Paul Hemphill's America column but there was lots of excellent writing and a prevailing sense of humour--it reached the 18-35 group better than SI, what you graduated to from comic books (okay, that was me).

o-<

Undertstand. Liked the magazine fine, and stuck with it for fifteen years from the late '50's, onward. And one of its charms was that
it didn't feel the need to maintain the pretentions inherent in IS, TN, or P.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Mr Hecht

Yeah, all true. Sport was smart without having to remind you about it all the time. Play hit you over the head with it. IS, in its original turn, best struck the balance.

o-<