Local Sports Weekly Betting That Players Will Want to Be Readers

Orange County has spawned newspapers for yuppie singles, for Vietnamese refugees and for kids. Now a new entrant aims to appeal to what may be one of the biggest sub-markets of all: Irvine jocks young and old.

On Thursday morning, 20,000 Irvine residents found Volume 1, No. 1 of the Irvine Sports Journal on their lawns. The 28-page weekly tabloid--which calls itself “Irvine’s newest and hottest publication”--will be distributed free (and unsolicited) to Irvine residents.

The idea behind the paper--which has the unpolished look of a high school publication--is that no sport at any level is too insignificant to cover, said Tom Ricci, one of its three publishers. The usuals--soccer, football, baseball--are all mentioned, as are martial arts, darts, kayaking, skeet shooting and others.

“If you want your athletic event covered, the Irvine Sports Journal wants to be there,” declares one of four self-promotion ads in the first edition. “Cheerleading and band coverage, complete team rosters, booster club info. . . . Read by Irvine coaches, family and friends.”

And that’s how the privately financed paper plans to build a readership. “People in this city are very tied to their youth and programs,” Ricci said. “The (Los Angeles) Times and the (Orange County) Register just can’t cover it all. . . . The Irvine World News does the best job it can with its 28 pages.” Those pages just are not enough to mention all the young and old athletes who are not stars but who work hard, Ricci said, adding, “the average kid ought to get his name up in lights too.” The journal, he reasons, will do just that for the kids and their parents--and give them something to send to Uncle Fred and Aunt Ethel.

The idea seems reasonable. Irvine, after all, is home to the Irvine Baseball Assn., the largest youth baseball program for a single city in the nation, said Anthony Korba, association chairman. There are 2,300 children who play in that program, he said, and another 800 who play in the Northwood Little League. More than 2,000 play soccer through the American Youth Soccer Organization, he said.

In all, nearly 6,700 youngsters are active in sports overseen by the Irvine Sports Committee, which is involved with soccer, Little League baseball, swimming and football, according to Mike O’Connor, Irvine athletics services supervisor. To the youth numbers add the 12,870 adults who are involved in city-run softball, volleyball and baseball leagues, he said.

And those figures do not include other organizations that use the city’s fields but are not involved in city-run programs.

$50,000 Investment

“Irvine has got to be one of the hottest sports towns in the nation,” said Dick Januzzi, one of the other journal publishers. Ricci, Januzzi and publisher Dave Perry have invested about $50,000 so far, which they hope will lead to “a few million” in revenue after the first year, Januzzi said.

The idea is to build on a broad base of advertisers, ones who have some appeal to youngsters or their families. Issue No. 1, for instance, has three ads for pizza parlors, one for a Mexican restaurant, one for a video store, one for a real-estate inspection service, one for a medical center and one for a lending group.

The businesses “have kids involved in the (athletics) programs, and this is a nice way to reach a lot of people like themselves,” Ricci said.

Ads run about $400 for a half-page each week, Ricci said, which he estimated is about 10% less than comparable local weeklies.

The paper is put out by Ricci, who works full-time on the project, Irvine High School journalism adviser Tammie Montgomery, and high school and college students who are paid $10 to $50 a story, Ricci said.

“There are so many things going on athletically in Irvine. It’s the perfect yuppie community,” Ricci said.