• by February 2, 2006

The first issue of a new, national sports magazine published by The New York Times Co. will appear February 5, on Super Bowl Sunday, with 50 pages of ads, the company announced.

Entitled PLAY: The New York Times Sports Magazine, the title has the same trim size and is printed on similar paper stock as The New York Times Magazine, a weekly. Like that magazine, the new sports publication will be distributed inside Sunday editions of The New York Times.

Advertisers appearing in the first issue include NBC, Nike, Major League Baseball, Spyder, and the National Football League. Marketers in categories including liquor, fashion, watches, automotive, and vacation real estate are also represented in the launch issue.

"Advertisers' response to PLAY exceeded our expectations, especially given the shortened sales cycle we had around the 2005 holiday period," said Jyll Holzman, senior vice president of advertising for The New York Times. "We see this response as validation that there is a demand to be met for well-focused content that is tailored to readers' specialty interests--particularly sports-related news and information."

PLAY will be distributed four times this year, with additional issues coming in June, August, and October. The launch issue will also be distributed at various NFL events and venues in Detroit, where Super Bowl XL will be played.

Contents of PLAY will also be available at the newspaper's Web site at www.nytimes.com. With online and print circulation combined, the company said The New York Times reaches an audience of 15.5 million readers monthly.

A magazine spokesman said the debut issue of PLAY would carry 50 pages of advertising and 70 pages of editorial, for a total page count of 120. While the ad page count appears impressive, it is not uncommon for the debut issue of a new magazine to lure advertisers attracted to the novelty of the product and special ad rates for first-time clients.