May

19

We Had Such Dreams Then: Analyzing the Death of Play Magazine

May 19, 2009 | by T.J. Donegan | Categories Magazines, Newspapers | 2 Comments

Imagine, for a moment, that you were going to build a sports magazine.

It would be a magazine that looked to recapture the glory days of sports magazine writing, the days of Gay Talese, Ring Lardner, William Nack, Mark Kram and others.

It would focus not on the daily commotion of sports, but on the lasting and profound human stories that permeate the games we play and watch.

What would you need to get this off the ground?

Backing by a traditional media powerhouse, a brand that carries the cachet to instantly provide credibility, access, and lasting impact?

A solid freshman and sophomore year coupled with incredible critical success and multiple National Magazine Award nominations for excellence?

A budding reputation for phenomenal journalism that would appeal to even the most important people? (courtesy Deadspin)

The ability to finance and employ some of the best freelance writers working today? To send them to places other writers, let alone readers, would have trouble getting to?

Well, if you think that’s the ideal recipe for magazine success, a can’t-miss proposition that would save sports journalism, you probably shouldn’t read the heartbreaking eulogy of The New York Times’ Play Magazine given by the New York Review of Magazines. (note to NYRM, don’t make your whole site in Flash)

Deadspin’s Tommy Craggs, formerly of Play himself, calls the failed magazine sports writing’s last shot. I disagree, to a point.

Play failed for a number of reasons. It was never a massively successful venture — good long-form journalism rarely is — but it was never terribly unsuccessful. As the NYRM article points out, the magazine, in its three years, never lost even $500,000 in a single year, and broke even one year.

Play fell victim to a combination of circumstances, mostly being an, at best, marginally profitable venture for a company and in a time that can no longer afford even marginally profitable ventures.

The Times is swimming in debt, staying afloat temporarily by cutting costs, and the advertisers upon which sports journalism generally rely are too poor to pay for magazines. It’s just not the right time.

But is this sports writing’s last shot? Is Play the only model that will work? Could Play have done better?

The main problem with Play was that it wasn’t profitable enough. But, in my mind, it wasn’t profitable enough because it wasn’t well-known enough.

As a quarterly insert in the NY Times, it certainly didn’t have the month-to-month exposure of ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated, and it was hardly a household name outside of certain circles.

Can magazine journalism thrive at all in such an environment, though? It’s the same problem all journalism faces right now. Long-form journalism, the kind that builds reputations and wins awards, costs time and money–things that media outlets are increasingly wary about investing.

Swamped in debt, how can any media outlet justify large investments in things that aren’t profitable?

The truth is that when newspapers and magazines and other media outlets invest in these things, they’re not getting money in return, but trust. When you’re the place to go for the big, breaking stories and you employ the best reporters, you’re going to get the most readers.

But with papers living quarter-to-quarter right now, how can anyone afford to take on projects like Play?

I don’t have the answer, and if you read this far hoping I did, I apologize. But nobody really has the answer, you can’t just predict success here. Will it involve delivering to a Kindle-type device? A web-only publication with a pay wall? Some model we haven’t thought up yet?

I don’t know. Still, I think there’s hope for sports journalism yet. I look at things like HBO’s Real Sports, ESPN’s E-Ticket and E:60, and, to some extent, the recent work in Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine, and see quite a bit of solid long-form sports writing. (Certainly enough to fill those The Best American Sports Writing of the Year books)

Beyond that, I think part of finding future success for sports writing as a whole involves redefining what that success is. Are there going to be many sports-only magazines in the near future? Probably not.

But I’m always reading great sports writing in sources I wouldn’t expect to see it. Runner’s World received a ton of critical praise for their story about a dog who saved an adventure racer’s life. Men’s Journal has published some great work, including their profile of UFC fighter Evan Tanner and his last days. Even Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary piece, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” was found in Scanlan’s Monthly.

So maybe founding a sports magazine that focuses on the rich library of human stories shouldn’t be the business’ focus, but in beginning to apply the thinking that most have always felt: that great sports writing, even though it is about athletes and games, is no different from other great writing, and belongs right beside it.

Even if it’s in a non-sports magazine.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Dan G on May 19, 2009 9:26 am

    I have never heard of PLAY magazine. What a shame, it sounds like something I would have bought.

  2. T.J. Donegan on May 19, 2009 7:49 pm

    I agree, I only came across Play after their NMA nominations. Play really could have, and should have, been successful.

    It’s a shame. It’s a sign of what happens when newspapers forget about building audiences through quality journalism and great stories and focus only on next month’s bottom line.

    It’s just the time we live in, unfortunately.

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