Heard this week from the managing editor, a former colleague of mine, that the magazine has been killed by the owner of Century Publishing, along with companion titles Auto Racing Digest and Wrestling Digest. Three editors were laid off by the company. Century will continue to produce Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey and Bowling Digests. Pure business move in an increasingly tough magazine climate, especially for a bi-monthly that had a hard time being timely and relevant. I think the circ was about 30,000, which is surprising given the numbers I've heard for Soccer America, but a lot of that came from the very low subscription price. Still, I'm sad to see one of the few soccer-only mags in the U.S. go after 25 years in business.
I was talking to Ray Alley, the publisher of Southern Soccer Scene, at the ACC Tourney the other day and he mentioned that both Soccer Jr and Soccer Digest were gone. Sad days indeed. That leaves Soccer America, Southern Soccer Scene, and Soccer New England. Of course the old editor of 90:00 Minutes has moved on to the new Soccer Post magazine, and I see that apparently 90:00 Minutes still exists in some form. I'll believe it when I see as far as the long term viability of these two publications. And of course there's the Emerald City Gazette, which after a few months off should have three new issues in the next 2 1/2 months.
Judging by the amount of actual advertising in the issues of Soccer Digest I've seen lately, it's not surprising. 90:00's new management is apparently much better than the old. But, like you say, the proof is in the pudding. Let's see what happens.
Soccer Digest, you will be missed... I enjoyed reading it at work. Its compact design fit perfectly into a pocket. It was not as if I was carrying a magazine around work.
As someone who had a few articles freelanced in that publication around 1996-97, I'm sorry to see it go as well. And without bashing anyone who has been in charge of that publication before or since I had been published in it, I think the overall quality or lack thereof of that periodical has been going steadily downhill. It's a shame, yes, but the writing's been on the wall for some time. As a consumer, I can't say that I've felt particularly motvated to purchase a copy of that publication in the last few years or so. Also, I'm sure that the advent and explosion of the internet has contributed to the demise of that publication, as well as to others like it. Just a sign of the times, folks...
Soccer Digest RIP 1978-2003 I was a Soccer Digest subscriber for 24 of those 25 years. I've kept many of the back issues (even the ones during the dreaded mid-to-late 80s indoor soccer craze, when every article, it seemed was devoted to that rubbish). It's sad to see any soccer venture go under (I was a Fusion fan). Still, as others have mentioned, the quality had decreased. The writing was poor and facts were often incorrect, not to mention the fact that monthlies of anything nowadays (and SD was a BI-monthly) are finding it difficult to keep up with information in the internet age. Soccer America is experiencing something similar, and they're only biweekly.
Distribution was really poor. I can remember buying it at my local bookstore when the articles interested me, but for about the past 3 or 4 years, it has vanished off the shelves, so I stopped buying it.
I was WONDERING. Also, are Southern Soccer Scene and Soccer New England really the ONLY two regional soccer mags? I figured there naturally would be others ... (rustling to find my SNE re-order form ....).
I got the first issue of 90:00 and thought it was really good. I just never got around to subscribing. Last week, I got a call from someone in that company about investing in the company, blah, blah. I wasn't interested in the sales pitch, but I had them send me the prospectus. Included was a copy of the most recent 90:00. I haven't read it yet, but it looked decent.
A bi-weekly soccer magazine? Nowadays, with all the up-to-the-minute information on the Internet and FSW, it's hard to imagine a magazine with that time span between issues surviving. There's just too much going on in the game daily, all year round, and today's news is already yesterday's. It's always sad to see a soccer related business go under, but I don't think this is an indicator that the interest in soccer in America is on the decline - just the opposite, I believe...
To think, if they'd held on another week they could have tapped into Freddy Fever! Agree this has little to do with the state of soccer today. The problem with the magazine was that its business model was built in the '70s and the company never adjusted to the massive changes in media, primarily the internet, over the past decade. Same thing happened to another Century publication, Inside Sports, a national monthly that grew increasingly irrelevant in the mid to late '90s and died an unlamented death.
Bummer. I finally get one of my pictures in their mag, and they go under. And they never sent me a check either!!
Unless the parent company that puts all those "xxx Digest" sports pubs has gone under you should remind them to pay you.
Said it before, say it again -- the value of Soccer America is the combination of a feature-laden magazine and news-laden e-newsletters. If you're paying for Soccer America and not getting the newsletters, you're not getting full value for your money.
Wonder if I'll get a refund for the month of dailies I missed during the glitches after they changed their system.
This is sad news. I, too, have been an on-again, off-again subscriber since 1978, and have pretty much every issue in the collection. Time to write for a refund.