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I am an avid sports fan, and as a result, I like to subscribe to a few different magazines in order to get extra information about the games and athletes that I love. Subscribing to magazines used to be a no-brainer because that was pretty much the only way to get in-depth articles and analysis that the daily newspapers stayed away from.

These days, however, the Internet has made subscribing to magazines (and sports magazines in particular) a somewhat difficult decision. Obviously, there are many websites that provide up-to-the-minute coverage of all the major sporting events of the day, which means that anything appearing in magazines is pretty much old, obsolete news by the time it reaches the reader's hands. So subscribing to these periodicals can sometimes feel like a complete waste of money. As a result, I am now very careful about which magazines I spend my hard-earned cash on. I have to say that ESPN the Magazine is tops on my list.

ESPN the Magazine is one of the newer entries in the sports magazine market, having appeared on the scene in 1998 to take on the more established Sports Illustrated and other publications. I have to admit that when ESPN the Magazine first hit the shelves, I wasn't all that impressed. I didn't like the fact that it was oversized because I felt that made it harder to handle and read. I also didn't like the fact that I wasn't familiar with many of the columnists in the magazine. It's difficult to find excellent sports writing, so I like to stick with a few columnists that I've grown to trust over the years. Because of these reasons, I was reluctant to give ESPN the Magazine a chance. I just bought a few issues here and there on the newsstand, but never subscribed.

After a while, however, ESPN the Magazine started to grow on me. Dan Patrick's "Outtakes" column became one of my favorites, and I looked forward to reading that piece in each issue. I also developed a taste for the huge full-color action photographs in the magazine, as well as for the usual interview and analysis features. Then, one of my favorite sports columnists from the ESPN website, Bill Simmons, started writing in the magazine, and I was officially hooked.

There are two additional reasons that I will keep up my ESPN the Magazine subscription even as I let my other subscriptions run out. The first is that a paid subscription to ESPN the Magazine also allows me to have access to the "Insider" portion of the ESPN website. As an ESPN Insider, I can read premium content that regular site visitors can't get. This includes in-depth previews of upcoming sporting events, scouting reports on players in every major sport, special reports and interviews, fantasy sports articles, and much more. This is an invaluable resource to someone like me, especially since I write a lot of sports articles myself. ESPN Insider is one of my first stops whenever I'm researching information for one of my articles.

The second reason that I'll keep up with my ESPN the Magazine subscription is that it entitles me to view the entire magazine online. This is a feature that just started a couple of months ago, and I have to say that I'm very impressed with it. The interface is very easy to use, and it feels like you're really thumbing through the actual magazine. This is because not only are all the ad pages included in the online version, but the interface also performs a "page-turning" action, so that it looks like you're actually turning pages when you click through everything. I know some people are adverse to reading anything online for extended periods, but ESPN the Magazine is very easy to read because you can quickly adjust font sizes in order to get the page to look just right on your computer screen.

Some of you might be wondering why I would need to read the online version when I subscribe to the real thing and get the issues delivered right to my home. That's a good question, and I have a couple of different answers for that. First of all, I like being able to access the magazine online because it's available sooner than my real issue is. It obviously takes a few days for snail mail to be delivered, and there have even been times when an issue never arrived in the mail at all. Those kinds of things happen with magazine deliveries, as every subscriber well knows. So being able to get to the full magazine online while waiting for my real issue to arrive is a wonderful advantage.

Furthermore, there are times when I am working on my laptop away from home (such as at a WiFi hotspot or something like that) and I'll suddenly need to perform a quick fact check for an article that I'm writing. Instead of having to put off the task until I make it back home, I can just go to the ESPN website, access the full issue of the magazine from wherever I'm at, get the information that I need, and be on my way with no hassles and no fuss at all.

As far as I know, no other major sports magazine out there integrates both online and printed content as seamlessly as ESPN the Magazine is able to do. This is definitely a plus in the Internet Age, particularly since the integration is accomplished right at the ESPN website. That website is full of other sports information and is on my regular rotation of sites that I visit anyway, so it's not as though I have to make any extra effort to access the magazine contents. If ESPN were to set up a totally separate website for the online magazine, then I probably wouldn't visit it as often, but since I can click to it right from the ESPN homepage, it's convenient and easy to use. Say what you want about ESPN as a network, but there's really no denying that they really hit a home run with putting their magazine online in its entirety. I'm not saying they're the first or only magazine to do that; I'm just saying that I really enjoy the layout and the ease of use when reading the magazine online.

As you can see, there are many benefits that come along with subscribing to ESPN the Magazine. So if you're looking for a great sports magazine that is actually worth the money even when the Internet makes subscriptions something of a luxury, then I recommend getting ESPN the Magazine. The online features that come along with it are well worth the subscription cost!