Famed Writer Frank Deford Behind Project : Can a National Daily Sports Paper Beat Stiff Competition?

The talk in the press boxes began about the time the NBA playoffs started.

Celebrated writer Frank Deford, who had left Sports Illustrated after 27 years, was starting a national daily newspaper devoted entirely to sports. And with guaranteed three-year contracts and salaries apparently as high as $250,000, Deford was getting some of the biggest names in sportswriting to consider joining.

Today, a month later, the paper they are calling “the National” is still mostly an idea with money behind it, and the idea is to mix the scope and statistics of USA Today’s sports section with the style and intelligence of Sports Illustrated. The owners as yet have neither market surveys nor prototypes, and Deford is still interviewing to find a managing editor.

But even so, the National is already causing tremors of worry and expectation in sports journalism: Columnist Scott Ostler of the Los Angeles Times is considering joining. So is Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, basketball writer Peter Vecsey of the New York Post, college basketball writer and best-selling author John Feinstein, and others. Times sports columnist Jim Murray has also been approached by the new publication.

The publisher is former New York Post Publisher Peter Price, a Princeton classmate of Deford’s. The man behind them both is Mexican broadcasting magnate Emilio Azcarraga, the most powerful figure in Spanish-language broadcasting.

And the essential question behind it is obvious: How deep is the American appetite for sports, when the fan can watch ESPN on cable, get his local paper and USA Today the next morning and read the Sporting News and Sports Illustrated each week? The answer may set a new measure for the financial and cultural power of sports in this country.

The other question is more subtle. Does Azcarraga, with all his great wealth from TV programming, have the will and financial patience an American national newspaper may require? Most consider the venture a long shot and believe that unless Azcarraga is willing to risk hundreds of millions of dollars, the answer may be no.

“It seems to me that it might be an idea that would work,” Murray said.

The Times’ Ostler is “mulling” the offer and is considered likely to go, as are several of the other names mentioned. Of those, only one has confirmed that he is leaving: John Feinstein, the former Washington Post writer who struck it rich writing a book about Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight.

In addition, the headhunting firm of Youngs, Walker & Co. of Illinois interviewed nearly every major sports editor in the country by phone to find a managing editor.

They are down to a few finalists, among them John Cherwa of the Los Angeles Times, John Rawlings of the San Jose Mercury News and Van McKenzie of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

But what they would be joining remains speculative.

Plans call for the paper, which could be either tabloid or full size, to have anywhere from 32 to 48 pages “at least six days a week,” Price said, all of it about sports. It would include a page on business, one on entertainment, and an editorial page, according to Deford, and about 25% of the pages would be advertising. The paper would cost 50 cents and make use of full color.

There would be three or four national columnists--two each day--plus Deford writing once a week.

Price is promising a launch “by the end of the year,” although insiders say that is probably unrealistic. A second target is before the Super Bowl in late January next year.

And the paper would start in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles and possibly one or two other cities. For each city the paper would include four to eight pages of local coverage with two alternating local columnists. New York Times writer Peter Alfano has signed on as editor of the New York edition.

$100-Million Estimate

The total staff, Price said, would be about 100, most of them editors and reporters, with a smaller advertising and business staff.

“You can get the scores on ESPN or USA Today,” Deford said. “Here you can get everything, including English sentences. Sportswriting is already the best of American journalism. This will be the best of the best.”

The business plan is sketchier. “We’ve only been at it for a month now,” Price said.

Working, he said, on experience and instinct, Price is estimating publicly that the paper could require an investment of up to $100 million and would not likely begin to turn a profit for five years.

That investment should be adequate, Price believes, because the paper will not build printing plants or a distribution network. Instead it will contract for those tasks.

But others think $100 million may not be enough, if that is all Azcarraga is willing to lose before the National turns a profit.

Analysts Not Confident

One of the few start-up national newspapers in decades, USA Today has lost close to $600 million since it began in September, 1982.

And that number does not include costs that Gannett was able to absorb by borrowing staff and resources from its more than 80 local papers. To date, USA Today still has yet to turn a profit for an entire year.

“My guess is it will not be that big a property,” said J. Kendrick Noble Jr., who analyzes the newspaper industry for Paine Webber in New York. “I am not confident.”

John Morton, a newspaper expert with the brokerage firm of Lynch, Jones & Ryan in Washington, said the obstacles to success are enormous.

One is strong competition from high-quality sports sections. And some, such as USA Today, are unlikely to let the National evolve without a fight. Despite public assurances to the contrary by Gannett, sources at USA Today familiar with its marketing research said its sports section is the dominant reason people buy that paper.

Second is the costly problem of distribution, by satellite to various areas and then regional distribution beyond that. Third are all the other costs of starting up, from assigning contracts and assembling staff to buying news racks.

Lots of Talent Involved

Knight-Ridder attempted a sports publication in 1982-83 at the Pasadena Star-News called All Sports, which circulated in Southern California. But after failing to get adequate circulation and after internal market surveys showed little natural advertising market for it, according to Knight-Ridder’s Larry Jinks, the company dropped it after less than a year. Jinks, now publisher of the San Jose Mercury-News, was in charge of the newspaper division at the time.

Does Azcarraga have the necessary resources, financial, managerial and editorial? Deford himself is one advantage. “Frank is the pied piper of sports journalism,” said Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser, who is said to be talking to Deford about a job but declined to talk about it. “He isn’t just the key that opens the door. He’s the dynamite that blows it off the hinges.”

Price’s background is largely in magazines. Before joining the New York Post about a year ago, Price, who had trained as a lawyer, worked for Time Inc., rising to director of corporate development. Later he helped found a magazine advertising company which was sold to 3M Co. in 1977 for $20 million. About the same time he founded Avenue, a magazine given free to the wealthy on New York’s Upper East Side.

A Recent Idea

Azcarraga is more of a mystery. His resources are vast, but his experience is mostly in broadcasting, not newspapers. His company, Univisa, is an American arm of a Mexican broadcasting empire that has no parallel in the United States and is largely family owned.

The idea began only “four or six months ago,” said Price, when he and Azcarraga, who knew each other socially, “got around to the subject of why the United States didn’t have a national sports newspaper like most countries in the world.”

The Mexican sports daily Esto, owned by another wealthy Mexican, former UPI owner Mario Vazquez Rana, is that country’s largest paper in circulation.

After Price left the New York Post in April, he persuaded his former college classmate to join. Deford, who has no editing experience, did not even meet Azcarraga until two weeks ago in Mexico.

“I don’t think there are many more breaks in the clouds for newspapers,” Deford said. “I turned 50 last December and wasn’t liable to get this kind of chance again.”