By Michael Adams
Austin Sports Journal
The summer is supposed to be a time of rest and recovery for most sports journalists – but not this year.
From the Austin Sports Journal’s acquisition and organization into the Sports Journals, LLC, to breaking a national story, these past few weeks have been anything but slow.
In addition to that, the Austin Sports Journal is excited to welcome Covert Ford as an advertising partner and sponsor of our Athletes of the Week award for the 2025-26 athletic year.
The sports season will be here before you know it as the Texas High School Coaches Association (TXHSCA) coaching school starts on Jan. 20 and Sun Belt media days are July 22-23.
We’re also working on the ASJ’s football and volleyball previews that release in August – Aug, 7 for the volleyball preview and Aug. 25 for the football guide.
That’s a good lead-in into our next announcement.
A move to fully digital
It’s no secret the media landscape is changing. Newspapers are cutting back on daily print publications as fewer people are reading printed media and opting for digital consumption on mobile devices.
ASJ readers follow that trend and are vastly mobile, as nearly 75% of readers view our content on their phones or tablets. Even presales for hard copies of our football and volleyball previews are significantly down from 2024.
In fact, significantly more people read the digital versions of the 2024 football and volleyball previews than ordered physical copies.
With rising costs of printing and distribution of the magazines coupled with stagnant presale demand, I’ve made the decision to make the magazines fully digital moving forward.
This will also allow us to extend our reach, lower prices and expand our offerings to include a 2025-26 Austin Basketball Preview and 2026 Austin Spring Preview eMagazines.
What if I preordered copies of the magazines?
If you preordered physical copies or were an annual digital access+ subscriber (now known as all-access) prior to July 1, you are still going to get physical copies of the 2025 volleyball and/or football previews delivered to you as promised.
We are also still accepting preorders for physical copies through July 28. We will print a limited number of copies to satisfy all preorders but won’t accept any more after July 28.
As a thank you to anyone who ordered copies of the magazine, you’ll receive an exclusive discount code that gives you 30% off the annual all-access subscription if you’re not already a subscriber or want to upgrade.
Get early access
The Austin Sports Journal will digitally release eMagazine versions of its 2025 Austin Volleyball Preview and 2025 Austin Football Preview.
Both will be available on our website in a downloadable flipbook three days before the public release date exclusively to all-access and seasonal all-access subscribers.
This 76-page volleyball preview will preview the Texas college season with previews of 13 Division I programs, along with an in-depth look at the Austin area high school season with previews of all 83 schools in our coverage area.
The 56-page football guide will preview Texas State and the Austin-area high school football season, including previews of all 83 schools.
New subscription offering
We are always looking for ways to better serve our readers and provide high quality content.
Feedback we regularly received from readers is that they just wanted to follow a particular sports season (e.g. basketball or soccer) and didn’t need a full-year’s subscription.
With that in mind, I’m pleased to announce our new seasonal all-access subscription.
Seasonal subscribers receive full access to everything on our website, including our digital preview magazines – football, volleyball, basketball (new for 2025) and spring sports (new for 2026). As an added bonus, all-access subscribers get early access to the digital previews – three days before public release.
With a seasonal all-access, your subscription is half the price of an annual subscription, and you’re automatically billed every six months instead of annually. You can cancel any time.
The all-access subscription is $49.99 and has the same offerings as the seasonal membership and is billed annually.
My goal has been – and will continue to be – to generate enough revenue from advertising and sponsorships to cover costs and be profitable. By doing so, we can eliminate subscriptions altogether. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.
I’m proud of what we’ve built –and even more excited about what’s ahead. With a stronger digital foundation, we’re just getting started.
Thank you for being part of the Austin Sports Journal community.
