Conference 7.286::sports_91

    Oh No!!  I was waiting with great enthusiasm for it to get out here to
    Colorado.  Too bad.
    
    Glenn

    
    After all the buildup, I really thought the paper was pretty
    piss-poor, especially after they raised the price before they'd even
    established themselves.  When I originally heard that Frank Deford 
    was heading up the effort, I thought the paper might contain some
    well-thought out pieces and decent writing a la Sports Illustrated.
    Instead, they leaned more heavily to the tabloid-style gossipy side,
    complete with all the sleazy gambling advertisements, and I lost
    interest in the paper after buying it a few times...
    
    glenn
     

I agree.  For 50�, it was a good deal.  Beats picking up the USA Today and
throwing out the other 3 sections.  But once they raised the price, I think the
quality started to go down.  The stories were replaced with stats, alot
uninteresting.  Got to the point where I was almost never picking it up.  And
I'm a sports news addict.  If they couldn't sell to me, they can't sell to
anyone.

j.

>... Beats picking up the USA Today and
>throwing out the other 3 sections.  

Hey, I work the crossword puzzle and the rest of the LIFE section seems
appropriate reading while taking care of business in the next morning.

TTom

 "The National" arrived in Charlotte for the NBA All-Star Game festivities
 back in February.   
 
 In late March or early April, Dan'l Medvid and I were going to start
 splitting the costs on picking up a single copy each day to share in the
 office.
 
 After about 2 days, when we realized that the thing had a 12:00 midnight
 deadline for our edition, we punted it.    Certainly not worth $0.75 for
 news that was no more current than ESPN SportsCenter the night before.
 
 Also, they did something weird on weekends, too.   With "USA Today", you
 get the entire weekend's worth of news on Monday morning.    With "The
 National", it seemed like Monday morning was really just Friday's news.
 
 For example, we were getting it during the Final Four.   The monster
 upset of Duke over Vegas wasn't in Monday's edition.   They saved it for
 Tuesday.   And, of course, by then, Duke had beaten Kansas for the whole
 thing.  But that was past the deadline for Tuesday so that made
 Wednesday's copy.   I think that's the way it all went.
 
 Whatever ... Forget it, we said.
 
 Bob Hunt

       does RIP stand for rest in piece, or rip, as you guys are ripping
    it to pieces (verbally) and who knows, maybe physically;^
          

    I really enjoyed this paper during the football season, also thats
    when it was only 50 cents. Once football was over I bought it a
    few times and I didn't like it, then it went up a quater. I think
    they did a great job covering football though.
    
                                                           dc

    I have a feeling that had the National produced a Monday morning
    edition with a Sunday midnight deadline instead of a Sat-Monday
    edition, Bob Hunt and I would still be reading it.
    
    I can't believe they are going to fold.  All they have to do is get in
    touch with the people/readers/past-readers to define the problems and
    make their product better.  Obvioulsy, ex-Digital managers are at the
    National's helm.
    
    	--dan'l

       
    > I have a feeling that had the National produced a Monday morning
    > edition with a Sunday midnight deadline instead of a Sat-Monday
    > edition, Bob Hunt and I would still be reading it.
    
    I believe they did.  You guys were either getting the absolute earliest 
    edition or that bogus "Cross Country" version they put out in some 
    areas which is a day late across the board on its news...
    
    I know I picked up the Monday morning edition in the airport in Boston 
    after the UNLV-Duke affair Saturday night and there was mucho coverage 
    on both the game and the aftermath of the next day.
    
    glenn
     

 Glenn,
 
 I don't recall which issue it was that we were reading but both Dan'l and
 I agreed that the timing was way off and it wasn't worth the money to read
 old news.
 
 USA Today has a piece on The National's demise this morning.   The paper
 has a staff of 280 and it has cost its owner, a Mexican media heavy named
 Emilio Azcarraga, a cool $100,000,000 big ones.   Apparently, Azcarraga
 told Frank Deford that he was willing to spend a hundred million dollars
 over five years.   It took a year and a half.
 
 The USA Today writer bulleted three separate reasons for The National's
 failure ... 
 
 Distribution.   They used different contractors in each big city to print
 and deliver the papers.    This apparently was a big reason for the
 ridiculously tight deadlines that made them miss late scores.    Too many
 headaches for the costs.
 
 Advertising.   The recession didn't help overall ad spending but The
 National had big problems courting advertisers.   Their last issue has
 just a little over 5 pages devoted to paid ads ... out of 40 total.
 
 Competition.   Sports news is a booming business and The National took its
 lumps from the big city daily papers and USA Today as well as the cable TV
 all-sports channels like ESPN.
 
 Their final headline is ... "We had a ball.  The fat lady sings our song."
 
 Bob Hunt
 

   <<< Note 162.10 by GOLDKY::HUNT "I just want to help the ballclub ..." >>>
                       -< More on The National's demise >-

> Distribution.   They used different contractors in each big city to print
> and deliver the papers.    This apparently was a big reason for the
> ridiculously tight deadlines that made them miss late scores.    Too many
> headaches for the costs.
 
FWIW, This is exactly the same method that the USA Today uses. In 
the Eastern MA/NH area, USA Today was printed and distributed 
through the Lawrence Eagle Tribune.

It was move a couple of years ago to a paper in the Lynn area, I 
believe.

daryll

>    You guys were either getting the absolute earliest 
>    edition or that bogus "Cross Country" version they put out in some 
>    areas which is a day late across the board on its news...
    
    Knowing the mentality of most sports enthusiasts, if you're going to be
    a sports rag and call yourself "The National," you'd better have timely
    news nationally.  
    
    I just can't believe they're giving up rather than attempting to fix
    some really obvious reader displeasure.  
    
    	--dan'l

    >I just can't believe they're giving up rather than attempting to fix
    >some really obvious reader displeasure.  
    
    Me too.  It can see why the bank roll has had enough, but it's probably
    not good economics which has them killing it now.
    
    I often enjoyed leafing through the paper, and stopping wherever I
    wanted.  Often, it didn't have the depth that I desired, but overall it
    gave what it promised.  Some of the feature stories (I usually didn't
    read them) were very well done.  At this point, I only was picking it
    up maybe once a week, once every other week, but depending on the
    season and my mood, I coult pick it up every day for a week or two in
    stretches.
    
    For those simple pleasures, I'll miss it.
    
    Dan

    One thing the national had was far and above better football
    coverage.  Their pullout section highlighting all key college and
    pro games was excellent.  I was turned off by the 75 cent price and
    the lack of the local scoop which it was supposed to have.
    
    Jimbo

    
    	I kind of liked reading The National while visiting New York
    last summer.  Good in-depth articles that most other papers didn't
    have.
    
    	Didn't like the .50 cent price tag, though.
    
    						
                                                glen j.

    First of all, they (being the writers and editors) didn't give up;
    the big money man from Mexico just shut off the pump.
    
    Unlike most of the respondees in this note, I really enjoyed the
    National.  I bought it every day when it was 50 cents, but the
    extra quarter had me buying it only a couple of times a week.
    
    The extra quarter was the death knell.  Rather than raising the price,
    they should have looked at expanding the readership.  Before they
    went up the quarter, they averaged 280,000 readers a day, for a sales
    income of $140,000 a day.  Circulation dropped to under 200,000
    recently with the price going up a quarter.  The raise in price was
    negated by the smaller readership and declining circulation.  If
    they sold 190,000 papers a day at 75 cents, they only made $142,500
    a day, a negligible increase.
    
    Other mistakes they made were too many high-priced writers and not
    enough nation-wide advertising.  I think if they had kept the price
    at 50 cents and found some insurance, car, and beer companies to join
    them, they would have eventually been successful.
    
    NAZZ

Bottom line for me was this:  why should I spend 75 cents for a
paper that purported to be a national sports daily, yet did not
carry scores from the west coast, when I could pay 50 cents for
USA Today, and get the game writeups and boxes from the previous
night's west coast games?

Laker_Ken

    Was the quarter hike the same time they got rid of the final edition?
    At least in Burlington, I stopped getting the final edition and started
    getting the 3-star edition, which missed a lot of stuff on the coast.
    I agree it was great for football, and it had some decent baseball
    and basketball stat coverage.  Some of the articles were intersting.
    
    The quarter hike definitely killed it.  Too bad.

    I really liked the NATIONAL, and will miss it greatly.  One of the key
    reasons I liked it was because it HAD west coast scores and the USA
    Today did NOT.  I live in Hudson, MA.....and the local Li'l Peach
    received the latest edition NATIONAL and an earlier edition USA Today.
    
    Also, the writeups on Pro Football in the National (game summaries as
    well as team updates) were far better than those in the USA Today
    (IMHO)!!  I felt the concept of a 'Sports only' newspaper was long
    overdue, and I'm deeply depressed to realize that it couldn't be done
    (successfully).
    
    
    Nelly

    
    A previous printer for The National is investigating reviving the paper
    and circulating it in select areas again.