The New York Times Co is closing its quarterly sports magazine, Play, to cut costs and focus on other Sunday insert magazines such as its weekly travel publication, T, in a falling ad market.
The New York Times reported: [Link]
Mark Bryant, the editor of Play since its inception, said he was told last week that the issue published last month would be the final one, “and I started letting the staff know over the weekend.”
“It was a nice run and we enjoyed it, but given the reports almost daily of magazines cutting back and shutting down, I have to be philosophical about it,” he said.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the New York Times Company, confirmed the closing. Bryant said that the magazine “was more or less breaking even,” but only because of an Olympics issue in which all the ad space was bought by Nielsen.
Play, first published in February 2006, counted among its fans some of the top executives at New York Times Co, including Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Nearly all of the magazine’s staff, including Bryant, were independent contractors, not Times employees.
