7ball was a Christian music magazine, first published in 1995, founded and created by Frank Chimento. They focused on rock, hip-hop, and other "alternative" forms of Christian music. The magazine was initially published by the Royal Magazine Group (a division of Thomas Nelson

Thomas Nelson (publisher)

Thomas Nelson is a publishing firm that began in Scotland in 1798 as the namesake of its founder. Its former US division is currently the sixth largest American trade publisher and the world's largest Christian publisher. It is owned by the private equity firm Kohlberg & Company...

) alongside Release magazine and others. Its primary competition were magazines such as HM, True Tunes News

True Tunes News

-Background:John J. Thompson founded True Tunes News out of his Wheaton, Illinois Christian record shop, True Tunes. The store itself, founded in 1989, with Chris Langill, was relatively unique because it focused exclusively on alternative Christian music at a time when Christian bookstores...

, and CCM

CCM Magazine

CCM Magazine was a monthly magazine published by Salem Publishing, a division of Salem Communications. It was first published in July 1978, and it has always been a Christian music magazine. On January 16, 2008, Salem announced that the April 2008 issue would be the final printed issue of the...

.

Background

7ball magazine was initially edited by Chris Well, former editor of the Christian rock magazine Syndicate, until 1996. At that time the magazine had a circulation of about 5,000. In 1997, the magazine was sold to VoxCorp (Nashville). Well was promoted to editor in chief of the entire company, overseeing 7ball, Release, and others, and former CCM assistant editor Bruce A. Brown hired in his place. Brown edited through the end of 1997, and was eventually replaced by Cameron Strang. In 1998 Chimento resigned from the organization to head up KMG Records

KMG Records

KMG Records was a Christian record label. The label was established in 1997 by Buddy Killen as a subunit of the Killen Music Group / Buddy Killen Enterprises and sold in late 1998 to Cal Turner III, who is related to the Cal Turner of Dollar General stores...

.

In early 1999 7ball gained distribution to Family Christian Stores

Family Christian Stores

Family Christian Stores is the world's largest Christian-focused retailer, and it is located in the United States. As of 2007, the retail chain had 4,600 employees in over 300 stores in 40 states...

, the largest Christian bookstore chain. By 2000 the magazine had achieved a circulation of about 50,000. HM Magazine editor Doug Van Pelt would later report that during its tenure 7ball cost them some of their advertising base. Strang edited into 2000, then founded the Relevant Media Group, which began publishing Relevant Magazine

Relevant Magazine

RELEVANT Magazine is a bimonthly magazine providing content on “God, life, and progressive culture”. It is published by RELEVANT Media Group and a circulation of 56,667. Its companion web presence, RELEVANTmagazine.com, launched in 2002 with the email newsletter, 850 Words of RELEVANT...

in 2003.

Their parent company, VoxCorp (Scott Henson, Sean Helton), was taken to court in 2002 by Capital Across America for defaulting on over one million dollars in loans. The eventual judgment against the publisher was one of the largest litigation awards in the Nashville area in 2003 according to the Nashville Business Journal.