Paul Steinbach’s career as an athlete is admittedly limited. As a high school junior, he mostly pitched batting practice to the 1984 Wisconsin state champion West Bend West baseball team while backing up the Spartans’ all-conference second-baseman (they remain friends). He skated through truncated stints in youth and men’s league ice hockey. He addressed the nation’s officiating crisis by umpiring high school and men’s baseball — for exactly one season. He returned to Madison after college and briefly served as player-manager of the University of Wisconsin Journalism School’s long-suffering rec league softball team. Once married to a marathoner, he proudly claims to this day that he’s never run two consecutive miles in his entire life. Steinbach instead discovered he could best maintain a relationship to athletics, fitness and recreation in another way. After serving as sports editor of two small-town Wisconsin newspapers, and editing the short-lived newsletter Collegiate Sports Marketing, he landed at Athletic Business, where he has endured for going on 27 years. AB senior editor Paul Steinbach, who first authored this recurring Q&A for AB in January 2000, recently caught up with himself to ask about his journalistic sticktoitiveness, particularly at AB Media Inc.
Are you aware that you have bylined more articles for Athletic Business than anyone in history?
I hadn’t really thought about that, but I guess that’s true. Huh.
How has the industry changed in your time at AB?
Where to begin? It might be easier to just read this special celebratory issue, but what stands out most for me is the constant evolution of the products and services that support athletics, fitness and recreation. The technologies driving everything from synthetic turf production and performance — even the dirt on an increasing number of baseball diamonds is synthetic turf these days — to exercise equipment and the building envelopes that house all of it has been a wonder to witness and write about. The architecture applied to facilities of these types is nothing short of stunning and getting seemingly more innovative every year. We were somewhat shocked when the construction cost of a single stadium surpassed $1 billion, and we recently learned the renovation of that same stadium is estimated to eclipse $1 billion when completed years from now. Meanwhile, the broader trend has swung from the bragging rights that come from building the biggest venues possible to instead right-sizing them in the interest of intimacy and the oft-emphasized fan experience. Let’s see. What else? Oh! So-called super conferences were, to me, a fairly far-fetched and scary concept for college sports in 1999, but here we are. Who could have believed then that Rutgers would travel coast to coast mid-week to play UCLA in Big Ten basketball? Who would have predicted that athlete compensation and a penalty-free transfer portal in college athletics would facilitate the freest free agency in all of sports, or that states would embrace — or at least acquiesce to — the idea of high school student-athletes pocketing payments for endorsements? Not this interested but naive observer.
How has AB changed?
We’re much more of a full-fledged media company today than we were when I started, and certainly since the magazine was launched. We have to be, as the way people consume information has changed tremendously. Within my window of time, we placed a lot of emphasis on building a functional internet presence, including search capability that would allow users to tap into our vast archive of content. Content. That has become the buzzword. We started producing an online newsletter to complement the magazine, and that has evolved into our daily AB Today, through which we’re having more fun now with reader polling and a monthly contest based on weekly quizzes covering industry-related current events. We have delved into the podcasting and webinar realms, as well, and throughout all of this evolution, the magazine — my first love — is still going strong.
Attention to technologies aside, what kind of relationships have you developed over the past 26-plus years?
Like most industries, it all comes down to people, right? That said, this industry naturally assembles a special breed. What’s made it so easy to go to work for Athletic Business — let’s call it by its all-encompassing company name, AB Media Inc. — all these years is not only the wonderful coworkers, several of whom have been here longer than I have, and the fact that we cover pretty dynamic and fun subject matter, but that this industry attracts really interesting people who are drawn to it for much the same reasons — the satisfaction that comes with sports participation and personal improvement, venue design and event staging, or simply spending much of the workday outdoors. Yes, I’ve seen coworkers come and go, and even a couple who have gone and come back again. Whatever the case, I still stay in touch with most. These are lifelong friendships in some cases. The same can be said of the vendors who I’ve had the privilege to meet and, yes, party with over the years. All great people.
How important is the partying, really?
The AB Media crew knows how to throw a party, attend a party and make a party out of most any situation. Are we almost done here? I’d like to buy you an adult beverage as a thank you for your time and effort.
