| THE sport magazine |
Sport Magazine is Back!
Back in the halcyon days of cable television in the 1970’s, making money in the sports programming
business was easy. The idea of specialized channels was just taking root and, like today’s
broadband network craze, target programming was the new darling of advertisers. In fact, we had
not only Young and Rubicam , then the largest ad agency in the USA and Katz Media positioning to
be our newest best friend. There were articles in the New York Times, press conferences with
French champagne and cold cracked salmon, private airplanes to cities like Montreal, Denver, and
Miami to announce the latest big thing, and the general headiness of being ‘Today’s News’.
It was in this atmosphere that a gentleman named Al Moss called to try to get our new cable sports
adventure into some sort of relationship with Sport Magazine. Wait a minute…..Sport Magazine?!
This was the Holy Grail to every kid that grew up liking Mickey Mantle and Norm Van Brocklin and
Floyd Patterson, and Bobby Hull, and Wilt Chamberlain. Sport Magazine! I was drymouthed as I set
up the appointment for as soon as I possibly could without fawning or looking too eager.
Waiting for the appointed time was like a ten year old waiting for Christmas to finally come. When
the given day finally arrived, I excitedly trundled up to the big city from my suburban Philadelphia
office feeling like I had just won a contest of some sort. Wow….Sport Magazine…..could we possibly
be allowed into such a celestial situation!
The meeting was otherwise mundane, but for the fact it was Sport Magazine. Of course, common
business sense was suspended as there was no way that I was going to return home without
somehow linking my new venture with this icon of sports history. Sure enough, Al Moss turned out to
be a wonderful man and we began an association with Sport Magazine that I cherished for years.
Now we fast forward into the 21st Century, a century that began without Sport Magazine. It had
fallen on hard times and passed through several owners, and it was finally suspended, a victim of
the very cable programming efforts that I had helped pioneer. In our company, we were past the
cable world and into the home video world and there were just too many things going on to save
Sport Magazine at the time, though it was always on my mind.
Now we’re in a world of internet broadband networks and – hooray!!!!!......E Magazines. The hunt to
revive Sport Magazine was started about a year ago and with this epistle I announce that the
mission is completed! Sport Magazine is back to inform and delight every sports fan who remembers
Curt Gowdy and the AFL and Vida Blue and the ABA and …well you get the picture.
Sport Magazine is back as an E Magazine right now. Shortly, we’ll be adding print annuals and
specials that will be true to the original magazine (no self serving claptrap otherwise known as ‘Boo
Yah”). We’ll bring you the best of the best writers, giving them free reign to paint the sports pictures
as we relished them each month when the new issue arrived in the mail…three dimensional and full
color writing!
We’ve always been sports TV producers in the old Mizlou and TVS Television Network days and we’
ll be building the very best sports TV shows and DVDs under the Sport Magazine Banner. We
promise they’ll also be true to the character of Sport Magazine and remind you of the days of Jim
McKay and Heywood Hale Broun, and Jack Whitaker. We’ll do the same with radio shows under the
Sport Magazine Banner, eschewing the self serving sports screamers in favor of kinder, gentler
programming that will capture the essence of both sports and media….a good story well told.
Wow……Sport Magazine!
Tom Ficara
Editor
Back in the halcyon days of cable television in the 1970’s, making money in the sports programming
business was easy. The idea of specialized channels was just taking root and, like today’s
broadband network craze, target programming was the new darling of advertisers. In fact, we had
not only Young and Rubicam , then the largest ad agency in the USA and Katz Media positioning to
be our newest best friend. There were articles in the New York Times, press conferences with
French champagne and cold cracked salmon, private airplanes to cities like Montreal, Denver, and
Miami to announce the latest big thing, and the general headiness of being ‘Today’s News’.
It was in this atmosphere that a gentleman named Al Moss called to try to get our new cable sports
adventure into some sort of relationship with Sport Magazine. Wait a minute…..Sport Magazine?!
This was the Holy Grail to every kid that grew up liking Mickey Mantle and Norm Van Brocklin and
Floyd Patterson, and Bobby Hull, and Wilt Chamberlain. Sport Magazine! I was drymouthed as I set
up the appointment for as soon as I possibly could without fawning or looking too eager.
Waiting for the appointed time was like a ten year old waiting for Christmas to finally come. When
the given day finally arrived, I excitedly trundled up to the big city from my suburban Philadelphia
office feeling like I had just won a contest of some sort. Wow….Sport Magazine…..could we possibly
be allowed into such a celestial situation!
The meeting was otherwise mundane, but for the fact it was Sport Magazine. Of course, common
business sense was suspended as there was no way that I was going to return home without
somehow linking my new venture with this icon of sports history. Sure enough, Al Moss turned out to
be a wonderful man and we began an association with Sport Magazine that I cherished for years.
Now we fast forward into the 21st Century, a century that began without Sport Magazine. It had
fallen on hard times and passed through several owners, and it was finally suspended, a victim of
the very cable programming efforts that I had helped pioneer. In our company, we were past the
cable world and into the home video world and there were just too many things going on to save
Sport Magazine at the time, though it was always on my mind.
Now we’re in a world of internet broadband networks and – hooray!!!!!......E Magazines. The hunt to
revive Sport Magazine was started about a year ago and with this epistle I announce that the
mission is completed! Sport Magazine is back to inform and delight every sports fan who remembers
Curt Gowdy and the AFL and Vida Blue and the ABA and …well you get the picture.
Sport Magazine is back as an E Magazine right now. Shortly, we’ll be adding print annuals and
specials that will be true to the original magazine (no self serving claptrap otherwise known as ‘Boo
Yah”). We’ll bring you the best of the best writers, giving them free reign to paint the sports pictures
as we relished them each month when the new issue arrived in the mail…three dimensional and full
color writing!
We’ve always been sports TV producers in the old Mizlou and TVS Television Network days and we’
ll be building the very best sports TV shows and DVDs under the Sport Magazine Banner. We
promise they’ll also be true to the character of Sport Magazine and remind you of the days of Jim
McKay and Heywood Hale Broun, and Jack Whitaker. We’ll do the same with radio shows under the
Sport Magazine Banner, eschewing the self serving sports screamers in favor of kinder, gentler
programming that will capture the essence of both sports and media….a good story well told.
Wow……Sport Magazine!
Tom Ficara
Editor
™
