[Publib] Official NBA Guide

[Judith Turner]

Hi, Jim and greetings, sports fans everywhere  --

An archival acquaintance of mine is a managing editor at Sporting News so I sent him a copy of your message about the demise of the Official NBA Guide.  He replied to me and gave me permission to share his message with Publib.  

It is:

Here's the deal:  Street and Smith's has not purchased Sporting News. Rather, American City Business Journals, the company that owns Street and Smith's and various other publications, bought Sporting News and all its properties in October 2006. ACBJ publishes over forty business journals in various cities around the United States. It also publishes the Sports Business Journal, several NASCAR magazines and the Hemmings family of magazines dealing with collectible cars. ACBJ is itself a subsidiary of Advance Publications, a large company holding many newspapers and the Conde Nast magazines.
  
 Immediately after the transaction was finalized, ACBJ began a review of all Sporting News publications. The result, effective in January 2007, was the discontinuation of all our guides and registers. The 2007 Baseball Register had already been published, but the 2007 Baseball Guide and the guides and registers for the NFL, the NBA and the NHL were put to rest. These decisions were made for business reasons. The only book that survives is the Complete Baseball Record Book. It is available for free on our website. I edit the Record Book, and I am now working on the 2008 edition.
  
 In addition to our weekly magazine and our guides and registers, Sporting News also published a series of slick preview magazines in the various sports. These yearbooks, as they are called, competed directly with a similar line produced by Street and Smith's. Yearbooks are in no sense substitutes for guides or registers. Following our acquisition, ACBJ decided to produce only one line of yearbooks. These are being produced in Charlotte by the former Street and Smith's staff, but they are being called Sporting News yearbooks. Thus, it is the Street and Smith's line that has disappeared.
  
 It remains to be seen what will happen in the guides and registers field. The NBA, with whom we produced the NBA Guide and the NBA Register as well as the WNBA Guide/Register, put out its own WNBA book this summer. So far as I know, it has not done anything similar for the NBA itself. Whether some other publishing company will step into the breach, not only in pro basketball but also in the other sports, is uncertain


Hope the above is helpful.  If anyone has specific questions for Steve, email
me offlist and I'll give you his email address.

Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI
James Casey <jcasey at oaklawnlibrary.org> wrote:       


-----Original Message----- 
 From: James Casey 
 Sent: Nov 2, 2007 8:57 AM 
 To: publib at webjunction.org 
 Subject: [Publib] Official NBA Guide 
 
 
 
  If any Libraries are wondering where the Official NBA Guide for 2007-2008 is to be found, it not available in book form.  The last one published was for the 2006-07 year.  Their Official Baseball Guide for 2007 was also discontinued.  Apparently Street & Smith bought out Sporting News and proceeded to discontinue these excellent sports reference books in favor of magazine versions.   
   
  I trust that many thousands of sports fans across the country are now looking for the Official NBA Guide for 2007-08 at their library or in book stores.  You might suggest that they call those responsible for eliminating this important reference book (704-973-1300) and voicing their concern.  Maybe these books can be resurrected at some point in the future.   
   
  James B. Casey – my own views.
  Director, Oak Lawn Public Library
  ALA Council Member

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