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Pro Football Weekly says goodbye (1 Viewer)

I hear that PFW was in a very bad way economically. Owing over $10 million and only worth a little over 100K. They had a multi-decade nice run there, but Hub Arkush really stepped in it calling out the Jon Gruden rumorsto Oakland last year in mid season, while the coach of the Raiders Dennis Allen was grieving the loss of his father. Bad timing and bad form. Can't say I'll shed a tear for Arkush. You can't stand on an island with your made up sources and still keep your credibility. Hub could have learned from Shefter and Glazer. Not surprised at the death of PFW.

 
Bummer. I used to love this magazine in the late 90s, but numerous factors made it obsolete, and I guess it was just a matter of time.

 
They put out a great magazine on the actual NFL draft and its prospects. I would buy it every year just to scout some guys who weren't widely publicized.

:sadbanana:

 
I was wondering why their draft section was never updated from 2012. Guess this explains it.

 
PFW was gold pre internet days to old bastards like myself playing FF in the 80s/90s
You beat me to it! Was a great tool back in the 90's. It's a shame, but if you don't constantly evolve, gonna get run over.
I don't know why they couldn't wait one more day to print issues during the season. For example, their issue that would preview the Week 9 games would not have the result of the Week 8 Monday game. Then they would make predictions for Week 9 games including of the two teams that played in the Monday game. If the starting QB got injured it would be a problem. This is why I preferred Sports Weekly over PFW.
 
I hear that PFW was in a very bad way economically. Owing over $10 million and only worth a little over 100K. They had a multi-decade nice run there, but Hub Arkush really stepped in it calling out the Jon Gruden rumorsto Oakland last year in mid season, while the coach of the Raiders Dennis Allen was grieving the loss of his father. Bad timing and bad form. Can't say I'll shed a tear for Arkush. You can't stand on an island with your made up sources and still keep your credibility. Hub could have learned from Shefter and Glazer. Not surprised at the death of PFW.
Without asking, I'm pretty sure those two read his articles like every other avid NFL fan. He's not young.It'd be very hard to believe that they owed 10mil and even harder to believe that these experienced people in the press would let you hear about their specific financial difficulties.
 
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PFW was gold pre internet days to old bastards like myself playing FF in the 80s/90s
You beat me to it! Was a great tool back in the 90's. It's a shame, but if you don't constantly evolve, gonna get run over.
I don't know why they couldn't wait one more day to print issues during the season.For example, their issue that would preview the Week 9 games would not have the result of the Week 8 Monday game. Then they would make predictions for Week 9 games including of the two teams that played in the Monday game. If the starting QB got injured it would be a problem.This is why I preferred Sports Weekly over PFW.
Friday is "the day" in the print world. It's incredible how Americans spend millions more to buy printed material on Friday than any other day. Facts are facts though and if you're a publisher you have to play to that. The USPS has deals set up for newspapers (and they probably help keep the USPS in business because they do) but the logistics of printing and getting in stores all over the country make the timing oh so difficult.

I've been in plenty of places throughout this country where the WSJ, NYTimes or USAToday is delivered a day or two later than the printing date. If those publishing deities can't make it work, PFW sure can't.

I enjoyed the classic NFL preview USAToday puts in Friday's paper, on Monday. I'd review and think good call, woops, and should have thought of that etc. I can understand people not buying it due to timeliness though.

Katrina, Iraq, 9/11, Exxon spill....fuel prices have always gone up but they jumped considerably during these times. I believe this increased shipping costs and "killed" some magazines, not the web.

The magazine business is an odd one. Publishers are fortunate to sell 40% of the mags they produce and probably are OK with 20-30%. From "day one" people have thought magazines were a bad business model, but they've been around for nearly a century. It's an extremely tough business to pull off and the culture has changed.

FBGs had a great product in their football magazine. They also had this golden sticker and those cartoon head stickers. I thought they had a great product and great marketing addons. It doesn't appear it worked for them and they switched to a pdf version.

Magazines are a very difficult business

 
I thought that article was very well written and could imagine how hard it was for him. Good luck, God Bless

 
PFW did not go away because of a specific opinion on Gruden or Geno smoth or anything. Arkish was more a forerunner to Shetfer and Glazer than anything.

The basic problem for profootballweekly was that it waited too late to attempt to go online heavily. Once it did, the organization had no idea what it was doing and by the time it was figured out there were multiple replacements for the type of stuff they did. for the day it was the stat heavy, nerd paper (Outsiders and focus), the place to go for draft info (too many site to name), and rumor-mongered (PFTalk and Nationalfootball post). Classic the information business changed before profootballweekly could do so.

 
Haven't really come across them much over the last few years. Might have caught a "Way We Hear It" article time to time. Company just sounds like it didn't evolve. Tried too hard in the end to be the news instead of reporting it.

Does this mean Nolan Nawrocki can piss off??

 
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Haven't really come across them much over the last few years. Might have caught a "Way We Hear It" article time to time. Company just sounds like it didn't evolve. Tried too hard in the end to be the news instead of reporting it. Does this mean Nolan Nawrocki can piss off??
It sounds like Nawrocki might currently be unemployed. Maybe the Jets will hire him to be a gofer.
 
I hear that PFW was in a very bad way economically. Owing over $10 million and only worth a little over 100K. They had a multi-decade nice run there, but Hub Arkush really stepped in it calling out the Jon Gruden rumorsto Oakland last year in mid season, while the coach of the Raiders Dennis Allen was grieving the loss of his father. Bad timing and bad form. Can't say I'll shed a tear for Arkush. You can't stand on an island with your made up sources and still keep your credibility. Hub could have learned from Shefter and Glazer. Not surprised at the death of PFW.
Without asking, I'm pretty sure those two read his articles like every other avid NFL fan. He's not young.It'd be very hard to believe that they owed 10mil and even harder to believe that these experienced people in the press would let you hear about their specific financial difficulties.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/2013/05/31/notice-of-pfw-assignment-for-benefit-of-creditors

 
PFW was the only solid NFL only publication available nationwide way back then. It had good writers and provided full coverage for all the teams. Great publication in its day.

As far as print publications go, it is all about number of sold copies, which drives your advertising rates. That's why you can subscribe to virtually any magazine you want for less than $5 a year through various discount services. What counts is subscriber numbers, not what the subscribers paid.

 
Excerpt from Peter King's MMQB today:

1. I think everyone in our business owes a debt of gratitude to Pro Football Weekly, which, buffeted by financial pressures that its editors fought for years, ceased publication Friday. (PFW will still have a preseason magazine this year.) So many football fans and football media spent years reading Pro Football Weekly for its exhaustive coverage in the pre- and early-internet days, when Packers fans living in Tampa couldn't find out much if any news about their team until the tabloid came in the mail each week.

And PFW gave us the gift of the late Joel Buchsbaum, the homebound scout from Brooklyn whose scouting reports before the draft were the kind NFL scouts read eagerly. Bill Belichick regarded Buchsbaum so highly he once offered him a job as a scout; Belichick also attended Buchsbaum's services when he died in 2002. PFW put Buchsbaum's reports in a softcover book each year, and it was must reading.

Check out this review of Albert Haynesworth a few months before Buschsbaum died, before the 2002 draft: "Immature and needs to be pushed at times. Can't be relied upon. Is not a hard worker or self-starter. Takes too many down off ... The type of player who could make your draft or break your heart." How perfect is that? We'll miss Pro Football Weekly, but the fact is, there's so much instant analysis and easy access to internet updates on every team that it lost its ability to be different enough. The mass of information, never-ending and free, killed PFW. Sad but true.
 
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