Newspapers: The Game Ended Fast

Like a brash rookie slugger who can't handle big-league curves, the National sports daily struck out last week. The flashy tabloid, owned by Mexican media mogul Emilio Azcarraga Milmo, never really connected with readers and advertisers, and it lost $100 million in just 17 months of publication. Its problems were compounded by "an economic climate that was getting worse and worse," said editor and publisher Frank Deford. Declaring WE HAD A BALL on its final front page, the first U.S. daily devoted entirely to sports printed its final edition last Thursday.

While it aimed for a circulation of 1 million by the end of the year, the National was selling only 200,000 copies when it folded. Circulation had ! climbed to nearly 250,000 but tumbled in January when the the paper raised its price from 50 cents to 75 cents a copy in an effort to reduce its losses. "The National was founded in the belief that it could feed off the soaring interest in sports," said John Morton, a newspaper analyst in Washington. But local newspapers, all-sports TV channels and other media already saturate sports events, Morton said. Azcarraga, whose holdings include Televisa, Mexico's largest private TV network, will now focus on expanding its Spanish- language programming in the U.S.