Newspapers are dead, especially the sports section

Baseball ratings up, but still trail NFL regular season games

Have you picked up a newspaper lately? Have you picked up a newspaper lately to get the latest sports scores? Of course you haven’t. Most people don’t buy newspapers anymore and very few subscribe to them. These days, the deadline for many papers going to press is 7 p.m., before many games even start. And if you don’t subscribe to a paper, forget about going to the corner store to buy a copy. You need a bank loan.

The Hartford Courant, which bills itself as the nations “oldest continuous newspaper,” costs $4 for a weekday edition at your favorite convenience store and $5.50 on weekends. Seriously?

It pains me to write about the death of newspapers, having been one who wrote for newspapers in my area and who use to saunter down to that corner store and buy the NY Daily News, NY Post, Boston Globe and other publications all for two bucks on a weekday. I would even splurge on occasion for the NY Times. Those days are long gone.

We are now in the fourth quarter of the year and changes in this dying industry are being announced on an almost daily basis, as the bean counters look for a way to revive an outdated business model. Per usual, sports is left on the cutting room floor.

Last year, the NY Times eliminated its sports section. Arthur Daley, Red Smith, Dave Anderson and Leonard Koppett, just to name four of the writers who once graced the Times sports section, must be rolling over in their graves.