You Go Boy!

Lifted from WSJ GOLDEN GOOSE: An executive at a budding digital startup is making a job move. Typical for a millennial, right? But he also happens to be one of the top professional basketball players. Kevin Durant, the deputy publisher of The Players’ Tribune, the digital outlet started by Yankees legend Derek Jeter that regularly features content by a slew of professional athletes, shocked the sports world Monday by announcing that he’s leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors, reports The Wall Street Journal. The fact that Mr. Durant posted his news directly to The Players’ Tribune is noteworthy because not so long ago, it would have been almost unheard of to not give this scoop to a traditional media outlet. (Remember LeBron James’s love letter to Cleveland when he announced he was coming back to the Cavaliers, delivering Sports Illustrated a huge traffic spike?) But as Mr. Durant told WSJ last year, The Players’ Tribune can “give you your own voice.” TIME TO CHANGE: The first step in solving a problem is recognizing you have one. Time Inc., which Chief Executive Joe Ripp has long preached should no longer be thought of as just a “magazine company,” is reorganizing its leadership structure to push toward a less print-dominant reality, reports CMO Today. The restructuring, which could include layoffs, means more live events, original digital content and social media distribution, as well as collaboration between magazines with similar coverage. Rich Battista, who was installed last year as executive vice president of Time Inc. and president of People and Entertainment Weekly, is expected to lead that charge and gain responsibility for several more titles currently overseen by Executive Vice President Evelyn Webster. One Time Inc. exec recognized that unlike digital-born companies like Vox and Vice, Time Inc.’s inherent fiefdoms can be problematic. “We’re competing with digital-first attackers structured differently from us,” the executive said. IT IS TIME FOR THE PLAYERS TO BE rp Real Players May we wish the best in this self-determination effort