Playtime’s over

The New York Times is axingPlay, its really excellent sports quarterly, which I gushed about not long ago—suggesting, in fact, that its fun, smart, beautifully written coverage was a model of where modern sports journalism might want to take itself. Shows how much I know. I’ll let the Times explain its decision (rather poorly, if you ask me):

First published in February 2006, Play won numerous accolades for intelligent, in-depth reporting and vivid photography, and this year it was a finalist for the prestigious prize in general excellence at the National Magazine Awards.

...

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times Company, confirmed the closure.

[Editor] Mr. [Mark] Bryant said that the magazine “was more or less breaking even,” but only because of a special Olympic issue published in August, in which all the ads were bought by the Nielsen Company.

They do know there are more Olympics coming up, right? Like, at fairly regular intervals? Ah, well.