During its peak, Pro Football Weekly was a must-have for NFL fans. The Houston Chronicle’s Lance Zierlein summed it up in a nice tribute:

When it came to football information and updated news, nobody beat PFW for years. This was the one publication that lived and breathed football at every waking moment before there were so many outlets doing it. As a sports society, many fans transitioned from football to basketball to baseball (some to hockey) seamlessly, from season to season. The hardcore fans had a chance to follow football year-round thanks to PFW.

What made PFW cool to me back in the ’80s and ’90s was that they were able to give you an overview of the entire league, but they were still able to devote space to your own favorite team. They were unique in that way. You could get the macro and the micro view in that magazine and you always felt like you were getting info from true insiders.

Yet that was then. Yesterday in my Chicago Tribune column, I wrote about why Pro Football Weekly had to shut its doors last week. Here is more from the Q/A I did with Hub Arkush, the magazine’s editor and publisher.

What happened?

Our corporate parent (Gatehouse Media) saw us as an opportunity to experiment in new media. Something they could monetize with a popular subject that is the NFL. In 2010, they invested $2 million in the new media operation. We got everything you’re supposed to have for the next wave.

People loved everything we were doing. We were projected to have 750,000 mobile app users. We had 1.3 million. We were projected to have 150 million video views. We had 260 million. We tripled the traffic on our website.

The problem is, nobody wanted to pay for it. The initial projection was that we would get 40-60 percent in paid apps. Well, 98 percent were free. People will pay for games, but not content.

We wanted to charge 99 cents per month, or something like that. We found out that people don’t want their credit cards floating out there. We found tremendous resistance.

In video, we generated the same numbers all the big guys are trading on. You would think advertisers would line up. We sold 10 percent of what we were projected to sell.

How frustrating was it?

That’s the hard part of all this. We beat every projection in terms of content and delivery. These pay walls don’t work. Nobody wants to pay (for content).

What about the magazine?

In this marketplace, I don’t see how you can make it as a magazine. It isn’t just us. We’re no different than The Sporting News or Newsweek. The weekly print model doesn’t work.

What happens from here?

I have been contacted by people who are interested in putting together a group to purchase (the assets) and have some version of Pro Football Weekly. There is tremendous equity in the Pro Football Weekly brand. If there was a new version, it would have to be more of a daily news gathering operation.

When things get quiet in the next couple of weeks, we’ll try to figure out what comes next.

What about the legacy of the magazine?

I think about my dad (Arthur) every day. He graduated from DePaul, and even played for Ray Meyer. He went to the Sun-Times, where he was a crime reporter. (In the mid-60s), he saw the NFL merger was coming and that football was going to be popular. He had the vision. When he launched the magazine (in 1967), the only employee was his mother, Rose. She was a talented bookkeeper.

When he died in 1979, I was 25, and my brother, Dan, was 26. We had no idea what we were doing, but we knew it was a dream of his to do this. Dan and I both met our wives at Pro Football Weekly. I guess we broke the rule of not dating employees.

We did have some success. We had two principles. We believe in journalism. We believe you had to be right, honest, and fair. The second principle is that we were a family business. We wanted the readers to be part of that extended family. Whenever there was an issue that impacted the game, we approached it from the angle of what does this mean for the fans? What is best for them? I think that’s why the audience we had was as devoted as they were.

What has the past few months been like for you and your family?

It’s been a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s been our entire family’s entire life. On the other hand, it has taken a tremendous toll on certain members of the family. It would be irresponsible not to take a step back and evaluate what we want to do.

The outpouring of support has surprised me. When you publish for 46 years, you reach hundreds of thousands in print and I suppose millions in broadcast. You don’t think about how many people are reading and listening when you’re doing it. You just hope you do it right.