The story of the circus surrounding the Miami Heat was as much about the media as it was about actual basketball. ESPN gave LeBron James an entire hour to announce his "decision," and then devoted an entire section to his team. Esquire launched an entire blog about James. Every pageview-hungry sports journalist tried to put their own unique spin on the story of the team. Yet, it appears the world wasn't ready for an entire magazine devoted largely to the team. Miami-based Skyboxx magazine has folded after just one issue.
Skyboxx was published by the same people who bring you The Source and the deliciously trashy Hip Hop Weekly, and claimed that "the Miami Heat are poised to become a franchise on the level of the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, the Showtime Lakers of the '80s -- teams that have broad appeal, that have followings beyond their local markets."
They figured that interest in the team could help them branch out into the world of sports magazines, and planed to devote at least 20 pages of editorial in each issue to the team. The very first (and last) cover featured a picture of LeBron James. On newsstands, it featured him wearing his Cavaliers jersey. Once you bought it you could peel it off to reveal his Heat jersey. The issue was largely built around the man.
It failed miserably.
"The first issue didn't do that well, so we decided to hold off on it," Judith Mays, associate publisher at Hip Hop Weekly, told AdAge.
Maybe there's just too much incessant coverage of the LeBron and the Heat on the internet and almost every other facet of media for anyone to really be interested in buying and reading a magazine that provided nothing but Miami Heat coverage.
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