Arkansas Business Plans Sports Expansion

Arkansas Business will increase its audience reach on the Internet and in print beginning this summer with expanded statewide sports coverage, Publisher Jeff Hankins announced April 26.
Jim Harris, entertainment editor of the Arkansas Times for the past eight years and former managing editor of Arkansas Business, will rejoin Arkansas Business Publishing Group of Little Rock and be editor of a daily sports Web site and monthly sports publication.
“Arkansas Business readers are avid sports spectators and participants,” Hankins said.
“With our base of more than 60,000 print readers and 40,000 Web site visitors who value our business coverage, we are uniquely positioned to launch these new products and deliver the same kind of quality and credible content in sports.
“Jim Harris is one of the state’s best writers and one of the most knowledgeable sports fanatics that I’ve ever known,” Hankins added.
In addition to Arkansas Business, ABPG publishes 14 other niche print publications. The company also operates Web sites Arkansasbusiness.com and Littlerockfamily.com and develops Web sites through its FLEX360 division.
The company started the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal in 1997, but then-publisher Darin Gray purchased controlling interest of the division in 2004.