The project planners of Ekipa24 and Sportske novosti merge are very satisfied, less so some readers who simply don't understand how come Sportske novosti newspaper can't be bought in Slovenia any more.

The Slovenian market for sport newspapers got a new image on June 13: Ekipa24 and Sportske novosti, great rivals until that date, unexpectedly merged. The merged newspaper has a circulation of 22,000 thousand. According to Mediana (source: TGI research) an issue of Ekipa was read by approximately 34 thousand readers (in 2012 the number of readers was 72,000). There is no data on readership of the Slovenian version of Sportske novosti. The competition from free web media brought a decline in sale, and consequently a smaller number of readers during last years. The editor of the merged newspaper Goran Obrez said that the sale of Ekipa24 exceeded the sale of Sportske novosti by 15 to 20%.

The idea emerged at the meeting with Boban
Goran Obrez however claims that the idea for merging did not arise from fear that the neswpapers would not be capable of surviving in these demanding conditions. "It was never about survival. Half a year ago neither of us ever considered such an option, but then Zvonimir Boban (president of the Sportske novosti management) and I met, and while talking about the small market in Slovenia, and discussing the good things both of us had to offer, the idea emerged that by combining our best, we could get a fantastic newspaper. SN has exceptional tradition, and they have extremely talented writers, while we can boast with a good coverage of Slovenian sport. Plus, "Sportske" sold in Slovenia were not written in the Slovenian language, and the young people are not familiar with the foreign language as in the old times, when it was taught in schools."

The first day sale three times larger than normally
Goran Obrez explains. "When starting with this project we knew that five percent of our readers, and five percent of the readers of the Slovenian version of SN won't be happy. We have received some complaints by e-mail, but we all know about those constant nags, and from which pub such mails are being sent. But unfortunately nobody can please everybody. We received more praise than complaints. Whoever opens the new newspaper can see that it is excellent, that the EkipaSN is better than Ekipa or Sportske novosti for Slovenia were separately. The results are very good, in fact quite surprising. The first day, on June 13, almost 300% more newspapers were sold than before. But we are aware that the golden times are long gone…."