Farewell: New York Times Cans Play
Sad day for fans of the longform and good writing in general: The New York Times has closed the doors on Play. According to editor Mark Bryant, everything was on pace for next year. Everything was within budget. But, as has happened at so many media entities across the country lately, cuts had to be made. And Play didn’t make it. Even though it basically broke even last year, it’s about the ads you still need to sell for next year. Perhaps that was part of the snag. A friend of mine who I just spoke to about this put it as such:
This was the best thing going in sports journalism. Hands down. Way to go, guys. Who needs creative department pieces that don’t center around Jose Lima’s favorite dinner dish or Stu Scott’s recent phone conversation with Matt Lienart? Who needs well reported, long-form features that focus on something other than the flavor of the week?
Honest to God, just last week I made the realization that this was my new favorite magazine. Not just sports related, but overall. That it had restored my faith in the way we cover sports. Unreal.
This is the biggest victim of the media crash. For all its history, I honestly would’ve been less disappointed to find out SI was folding.
Stay tuned for 2015, when the longest piece of sports writing you see is updates from some writer’s Twitter account. Sigh.
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Anyway, back to the tone of blockquoted friend: Oh noes! The internet is ruining everything!
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However, I'm inclined to think since ad buys in print are still at a higher rate than the Web, even scaling back the operation and doing it online only wouldn't have saved them enough scrill.
I'll have Sig run that through a cost-benefit analysis on the Zoladex to be sure, though.
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