The Boston Globe keeps adding to its roster of niche publications, which is smart. It plans to charge 50 cents for its new sports weekly, OT, which may not be so smart.
I could see something like OT being a howling success with advertisers if it were freely available. But I’m not sure people are going to lay out money for sports news that is not substantially different from what’s on the Web — even if OT is better written and more insightful, which it may well be with the likes of Charlie Pierce and Tony Massarotti writing for it.
We’ll see.
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Do you remember The National? It was a daily sports publication, edited by Frank DeFord, begun circa 1990. I don’t think this new publication has a chance, if it relies solely n journalism, but something akin to DeFord’s vision, of a comprehensive tip sheet for local sports bettors, might gain some traction.It’s a niche market, to be sure, but making the publication top-heavy with stats would appeal to those folks, as well as fantasy league weenies and the like. Throw in the top-notch writing and maybe…
If they try to make OT the ‘full article’ version of their current Boston Globe Sports section, and try to charge us for it, they’ll be making another bad decision in a long line of bad decisions dating back to the takeover by the New York Times Company. In other words, if they try to cut back on the length and content of the current Sports section of the Globe in hopes of forcing readers to buy OT in order to get the whole story, I won’t buy it, and the Globe will lose another customer for their withering newspaper.