Twenty years ago, roughly, I'd buy one of these and leaf through it. I learned over time that nearly everything in it other than reams of statistics could be found here, or I already knew anyway, or was irrelevant. I then resorted to glancing at them at Kroger and putting them back on the rack, just seeing what they said about UGA, which was stuff I already knew. Of course, I got a lot more educated once I started reading this site, or its predecessor etc. etc. etc.
They still have a market apparently even in this day of the Internet, and I can imagine some fans save them for years and years and have piles of dog eared "Athlons" sitting in a box somewhere. With all the information available today for free I'm a bit surprised they survive, and even prosper given the number available for each sport. I idly wonder how many of them get read beyond the favorite team and a few rivals.
ELA does a better job condensing information into something usable anyway. Duh.
I moved into the wife's house 5 years ago after living in my house for some 25 years and I of course ran across boxes, not of Athlon's or NatGeos, but "stuff" I guess at one time I thought was worth saving. My current move is better for me as a result, but I still come across "stuff" and wonder why in the world I thought I'd ever want to reread that. I cannot recall throwing something out and later wishing I had it back, or even being able to recall what I threw out, of this general ilk.
Are you a pack rat? Do you save old "stuff" just because someday you think you might want it? Do you ever sift through "stuff" in your basement on a rainy afternoon and end up with an extra large garbage pile? Good idea if you don't.
I had two foot lockers of stuff on my son, newspaper articles, letters, "stuff" I couldn't through out but no longer have room for so I "dumped" all that and more on my poor daughter, who likely will store it in her basement until some time she has to move. Now, that isn't the kind of thing I can easily discard in the trash of course, but I don't really have a need to look back through it, ever.
We need 7 years of tax records and some other official documents, and some other "stuff", but really not that much when you think about it. At least I don't have a 2001 Athlon in a box somewhere. I do have some ancient baseball cards about to be pitched. Humans are strange creatures really. We are not well adapted to modernity in a lot of ways, and have created this modernity despite ourselves.