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Old things are worthless in this computer world of the future! Look at old, venerable magazine titles. Life? Gone. The Saturday Evening Post? Ha. But the Sporting News—the throwback, stat-filled, serious sports magazine that started publishing in 1886—is trying to stage a comeback against the dominant glossies of today like ESPN Magazine. The Sporting News' three-pronged revival strategy: A digital newsletter; more (ghostwritten?) columns from retired sports stars (Troy Aikman speaks!); and a new column by the soon-to-be-former Deadspin.com cult figure Will Leitch. Hey, one of those might be beneficial!

The main criticism of the Sporting News' strategy is that its newsletter will come out in the morning, while rabid sports fans will probably have gotten their fill of the news the previous night. It's certainly possible that the entire comeback will be a colossal failure. But getting one of the sports world's most high-profile bloggers on staff (once again—Leitch worked there ten years ago) was a pretty savvy move for the old folks. People will be forced to link to them now!

Publisher Ed Baker's defense of the morning newsletter:

"What if a player gets arrested or traded? Things happen overnight," he said in response to Mr. Padwe's comment. "And if the Mets are on the West Coast playing the Dodgers, how many people stay up till 1 to find out the score?"

Here's hoping for plenty of arrests!

[NYT]