I am not your typical woman, I love sports. And I love to read about them. But this magazine is not where I'll be reading about them in the future.
I got a special offer in the mail to get a discounted year subscription for only $10.00. I thought it was a good deal and the magazine is only monthly so it wouldn't add too much to my toppling pile.
The one thing Sport magazine has in its favor is that it does cover a broader range of sports outside the big three (baseball, football, basketball). Just glancing here at several issues, I see articles on golf, boxing, wrestling (does that count?), tennis, and Olympic sports. There is also quite a bit on hockey and motor sports. I also enjoy the "Impact," feature, which is a photo-feature that shows pivotal moments in a game. The "Final Out" feature is also a photo-feature, showing some historic moment in sports. The April 2000 issue uses a picture of Casey Stengel talking to a young Mickey Mantle for the "final out."
But the rest of the magazine just isn't very interesting. The baseball, football, and basketball stories seem to be about the same athletes and the same teams, over and over and over. Okay, so the Lakers are really hot right now. But you know what? There is somebody besides Shaquille O'Neal on that team. Why do I have to read about him AGAIN? And some of these men may be athletes but they are not sportsmen. I don't care to read about the latest trash-talking NBA player, I don't care how good he is. The way some of these men behave when protesting a foul call takes me back to about fifth grade.
The quality of the writing is okay, no glaring grammatical or typographical errors. But many of the stories are rather dry. There are many stories that are written in interview format, which should make them more interesting. But they are not. Because they do not ask the right questions. Its the same old stuff a television announcer would ask in a 15-second sound bite after the game: "tell us Mr. X why you blew that last shot?" Of course you can't do much with the equally lame answer, except quote back his uninspiring words: "Uh, we didn't execute." Well, no duh.
The Locker Room is a regular feature with short-short sports news. This is good since the articles last about as long as my attention span. The May 2000 issue debates why the Master's champion jacket is green. Huh? Was it a slow news day? The sports "morph," which is a computerized morphing of some athlete's face into another personality or cartoon is also just plain dumb.
When my subscription runs out next month, I don't intend to renew it. Since my stack of unread magazines is close to three feet high, I probably won't replace it. I guess I'll get my dose of sports from ESPN.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.