In his office at Press Box, the Baltimore-area sports publication, Stan “the Fan” Charles props his feet on his desk. Where else should he put them? There’s no room on the floor, which is hysterically blanketed with random newspapers, magazines, books, boxes, various bric-a-brac and, who knows, maybe the lost remains of Amelia Earhardt beneath it all.
“My wife,” says Charles, “tried cleaning it up.”
He shakes his head hopelessly. There are some things in life beyond even the vast, supernatural powers of wives.
On the other hand, who’d have imagined a sports newspaper thriving in today’s marketplace, where newspapers of all sorts are flirting with mortality, and ad revenues are drying up faster than people’s reading habits, and previously unanticipated changes hit newsrooms every day.
Change is coming to Press Box, too. The mess in Charles’ office seems to reflect it, though there’s a suspicion this is a guy in need of cleaning help no matter the time or circumstances.
In its 2 years of existence, Press Box has developed an affectionate following among metro area sports fans for its handsome design, its veteran columnists such as Jim Henneman and Phil Jackman, and Larry Harris and Keith Mills, and such newcomers as Amber Theoharis, Joe Platania, Barry Silverman and Rob Long, plus commemorative magazines they’ve devoted to Cal Ripken and Brooks Robinson. An upcoming magazine will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1958 NFL champion Baltimore Colts.
You read Press Box each week, and you’ve got a pretty good seat at the ballpark, a genuine sense of the texture and pulse and mood of sports from Baltimore all the way to Annapolis and College Park, and considerable historic perspective, as well.
But other papers, formerly first-class, have nonetheless fallen on tough times. At Press Box, John Coulson, the paper’s vice president for sales and marketing, says his publication is moving pre-emptively – even as it’s now seeing some of its healthiest advertising numbers.
But the coming change is dramatic. The print version of the weekly is about to become a monthly, starting Nov. 15. The last weekly print edition hits the streets this week. But it will continue to produce fresh copy for its Web site each week, including its regular columnists.
As Charles and Coulson explain it, going to a monthly print edition gives them a chance to expand both the length of its articles – giving them more depth, and more of a magazine feel – and widen the breadth of its story selection.
Instead of 32-page print editions, they’ll expand to 64. In addition to the usual Orioles and Ravens coverage, and the colleges and pros, they’ll expand that coverage and add boxing, auto racing, sports business, martial arts, golf, hunting and fishing and boating.
“Just think about boating and sailing on the bay,” says Coulson. “How big is hunting and fishing in Maryland? These are things we should cover.”
“Right,” says Charles. “Current stuff, and lasso a little history along the way.”
But, lest anyone imagine this isn’t also about money – it is. In a time when daily newspapers – in Baltimore, and around the country – are downsizing their newsrooms, it’d be news if money wasn’t behind this.
“If we were rolling in dough, we wouldn’t make any changes,” says Coulson. “But pure economics didn’t motivate this. There are different kinds of economics. Two years ago, the paper was 40 percent ads. Today it’s 55 to 60 percent ads” – on the same number of pages.
“So we’re not covering stuff that we used to. We’d have a recreation teen of the week. You write about some 11-year old girl from Cockeysville, and you’ve got her parents calling everybody they know. It’s really cool for everybody. But you do that every week, reaching down into communities like that, and you need more staff, more printing, more layout attention. Do we spend added money on paper and gas and layout, or turn our energy into content?”
Coulson says ad revenues in August and September were the biggest in the paper’s history. Charles says advertisers have been enthusiastic about the coming change. Still, these are tough times for all publications.
“Last week, we had two car ads,” Coulson said. “Can you imagine this, in a sports newspaper? It’s incomprehensible. But that’s the economy we’ve got today.”
“In a way,” said Charles, “what we’re doing is a natural progression today. There’ll be more emphasis on the web site. But it’s the print edition that first gave us credibility. You couldn’t start with just the web. Print is still incredibly important.”
“Right,” said Coulson, “we have loyalty now.”
And, in today’s shaky economy, anxiety.
“Absolutely,” said Charles. “But, as Winston Churchill said, ‘This is not the beginning of the end. It is only the end of the beginning.’”
