He gets in the game with sports tabloid.

• Position: SportsBusiness Journal publisher Richard Weiss

Richard Weiss had spent four years criss-crossing Europe as managing director of The Wall Street Journal's European edition when he made a promise to his wife, Susan, in 1995. She was expecting twins, so Weiss assured her he'd be home the six weeks before the babies were due.

His daughters were born six weeks and one day early in Leuven, Belgium, where the Weisses were living. "I was in Warsaw, Poland, on the last day of my last business trip, which made me real popular," Weiss, 40, quips.

The Greensboro native has been closer to home the past year after taking the helm as publisher of the new SportsBusiness Journal, produced by Street & Smith's, a division of Charlotte-based American City Business Journals Inc. The national tabloid-size glossy weekly, which hit newsstands in April, reports on the glitzy and the mundane of sports business - athletes' multimillion-dollar salaries, labor disputes, stadium financing, corporate endorsements, sports media. It has a staff of 25 in Charlotte and reporters in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, home of ACBJ's parent, Advance Publications Inc.

With a circulation of 22,500, it targets team owners, general managers, league officials, sports agents, financiers and lawyers. "It is an absolutely brand new niche," Weiss says.

He admits leaving his previous job...