The death of Nanfang Sports

Cover of final issue of Nanfang Sports

Nanfang Sports, one of China’s major sports publications, sent out its last issue this week to its remaining 5000 subscribers. It follows on the heels of Liaoning’s Balls Weekly, which exited the market last month.

The paper was conceived in 2000 as an alternative to the dry sports reports that existed at the time. From its inception, Nanfang Sports was designed to deliver a combination of sports and entertainment from a different perspective, one that was trendier, more cosmopolitan. It introduced “sports babes” to the pages of the nation’s newspapers, which, though not as risque as your average western tabloid centerfold, were novel within the industry. Columnists brought an individuality to the sports reporting.

What led to this sudden death of a major sports newspaper? Perhaps it was not so surprising to some; Gong Xiaoyu, editor in chief of Nanfang Sports, had predicted last year that by the Olympics in 2008, all of China’s sports newspapers would be gone, and only a few specialized magazines would remain (see below for more of his comments).

The paper’s editors see the failure as a series of missed opportunities – a problem not with the newspaper itself but with its promotion and the way it went after the marketplace.

Pundits agree that it was a matter of poor market positioning, but they disagree as to what that position was, and what it should have been. Liu Xiaoxin, editor in chief of Football Weekly, said,

The fall of Nanfang Sports to a large degree is due to a wrong direction taken during the 2002 World Cup. For a while they did not continue with what made them unique, but rather entered the arena of providing news and information. And that was not one of their strengths.

On the other hand, Zheng Hong, a reporter for Beijing Daily Messenger, wrote,

From a perspective of pure entertainment, there is no mistaking that Nanfang Sports was a good paper. But this point is precisely their fatal weakness, since to acquire those characteristics that were entertaining, they ignored sport itself, to the point that this year, this paper that called itself a new power in sports media, drew further and further away from sports.”

Even Yao Ming chimed in, saying, “Nanfang Sports had too much entertainment content. By looking at sports as entertainment, they had too little focus on skills.”

In a farewell message that ran in the final issue, editor and columnist Fang Qiangqiang spoke of the paper’s unique, misunderstood vision, writing, “All along, Nanfang Sports has been a champion of an elegant, fashionable, carefree way of life.”

This position draws a snarky attack from Zhao Jingwen, who writes for The Economic Observer and also posts on the interesting media-and-economics blog Mind Meters. He uses as an example a comparison between Nanfang Sports and the leading paper Titan Sports:

Let’s take a look at what Nanfang Sports pays attention to. Taking this copy of Nanfang Sports I have at hand for an example, I see it’s divided into two sections. The A section has Zhu Guanhu on the cover, and it covers roughly the following topics: Zhu Guanghu’s five-year plan, to be a cool driver; Sharapova – I won’t die before I reach #1; the secrets of an F1 helmet; Liu Xiang’s journey to the west, and a few out-dated pictorials and unintelligible columns. At this time, the top story on Titan Sports is “An Qi’s Zipper-gate scandal” [rape charges against Chinese footballer].

The B section looks like it has nothing to do with sports. The cover is Huang Shengyi, and major stories are: Huang Shengyi – from girl to woman; cowboy world (pictures of cowboy fashion); hair removal; cars; AV section (movies, books, and music recommendations); and a few recommendations of bars and restaurants.

Do they want sports viewers to become more cultured, more middle-class? The problem is that if I wand to read about movies, can’t I just buy Movie View? If I want high culture, aren’t Read or Philharmonic more versed in culture than Nanfang Sports?

Ironically, another member of the family, Arena magazine (竞赛画报), was more gossipy yet better loved. It too ceased publication this year, shortly after Nanfang Sports made the switch from a twice-weekly newspaper format to a weekly magazine.

Nanfang Sports will be incorporated into the Southern Metropolitan Daily. The Southern Media Group has other plans to launch a new weekly, but it will neither use the Nanfang Sports name nor be focused on athletics.

Beijing Daily Messenger interviewed Gong Xiaoyu, who explains his view on his tenure as editor and the poor timing of the format change:

Reporter: Many people bemoan the demise of Nanfang Sports.

Gong: That means that Nanfang Sports is a quality publication. But there is no future to its operations, so we can only stop publication.

Reporter: What do you think is the primary reason for stopping publication of Nanfang Sports?

Gong: The impact of the Internet and general daily newspaper.

Reporter: Do you think that you or Nanfang Sports has brought anything to the current state of Chinese media?

Gong: Today I received a phone call from Li Chengpeng, who told me, “At this point there is no one working in sports media who would say that they haven’t been influenced by Nanfang Sports.” When I put forward the idea of making sports into entertainment five years ago, there were few people who agreed with me. But now everyone has accepted this viewpoint, and they all do the same in their work.

Reporter: Do you have anything to say to the sports newspapers that are still alive? Any warnings?

Gong: I’d advise them to get rid of their role as breaking news providers as soon as possible, and become perspective providers and lifestyle providers instead. Because of the impact of the Internet, people feel that there are too many ways to get information quickly, so specialized sports papers should avoid this.

Reporter: But in actuality, wasn’t Nanfang Sports doing precisely this before it ceased publication? It was more like a provider of perspective and explanation rather than an information provider.

Gong: But our transition was too late.

Reporter: Then when do you think would have been the best time to make the change?

Gong: Around the time of the World Cup in 2002 would have been the time to switch to the current form, not five months ago. (Five months ago Nanfang Sports switched from publishing twice a week as a newspaper to publishing once a week as a magazine.)

Reporter: Can you sum up your five year and five month ordeal at Nanfang Sports?

Gong: I’ve learned a lot in five years. And Nanfang Sports gave me an opportunity to try out some of my own ideas. If there was anything unsatisfactory, it was that I did not have the ability to turn my skills and enthusiasm into profit.