The news about Pro Football Weekly, or PFW just verifies: it’s been a rough go lately for sports magazines and sports newspapers. The Sporting News has been publishing in print for well over a century. It was announced several months ago they are ceasing their print operations. Print media is indeed a velociraptor.
Actually, that’s not fair since velociraptors were fierce, aggressive predators. Print media is whatever dinosaur velociraptors eat. Pro Football Weekly is shutting down. (1967-2013)
h/t Sherman Report
Hub Arkush, the editor and publisher, broke the news on the Pro Football Weekly site this pas weekend.
Arkush wrote:
This is the one piece I’ve spent part of my childhood and my entire adult life working to avoid having to write. But as I’ve come to learn repeatedly over the 46 years or so during which that effort has been ongoing, often at a significant price, you can’t win ‘em all. So, in my final act as the voice of Pro Football Weekly, it is time to say goodbye. Pro Football Weekly, as we’ve all known it since the first issue rolled off the press in late August of 1967, is no more.
The legal explanation of our demise is posted right here at ProFootballWeekly.com. Technically we were PRO FOOTBALL WEEKLY, LLC, a partnership, and contrary to popular perception, I have been neither the majority owner nor the managing partner for quite some time. I was the publisher/editor responsible for the day-to-day operation of the business, an employee with a minority interest in the partnership. That is probably irrelevant, though, as there really are no bad guys in this story.
Over the last five years our majority owner and each of the minority partners invested a tremendous amount of money, time and effort to try to build a bridge for PFW from the rapidly deteriorating world of old media to the new, exploding market of digital media and glitzy, new products. We built some truly great stuff that you all seemed to love, but try as we might, we couldn’t get enough of you to pay what it cost us to deliver it. There comes a time when there is just no more money to lose, and now we are forced to close the doors.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net. (“Quasi-endorsed” by Philadelphia Eagles Coach Chip Kelly) He’s also an author who also contributes regularly to MSN, Fox Sports , Chicago Now, Walter Football.com and Yardbarker
Banks has appeared on the History Channel, as well as Clear Channel, ESPN and CBS radio all over the world. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@PaulMBanks), like him on Facebook