Deadspin linked to information about a potential paid-subscription area of the Boston Globe. The Globe’s considering monetizing it’s sports content by putting their top columnists in a paid area. In addition to the columnists there would be other features. Amongst the proposed features are blogs from players and managers. Which raises the question, would you pay for a sports blog.
Perfomancing took a brief look at this issue a couple weeks ago and found a tech blog that appeared to be successful offering paid subscriptions to the archives. They identified 3 elements that contributed to it’s success:
- Scarcity of Information on the topic
- Business Focus
- Information contributes to profitability
In terms of sports blogs, I don’t see any of the 3 applying. I can’t imagine a scenario where the information would have enough of a business focus or contribute to profitability. While I’d be disappointed if my favorite sports blogs were no longer free, I’d probably just search for alternatives. The only exception would be if the blog provided information that wasn’t available elsewhere.
In addition to the fact a subscription based sports blog probably wouldn’t be a successful business model, it just feels wrong. I know many bloggers enjoy building a community, and promoting discussion. By making the content inaccessible to the masses, it would make both efforts more difficult.
On another note, the fact that the Globe is considering blogs to be worthy of inclusion in paid subscription model alongside their top columnists should serve as some validation for the blogging community. Granted, the site is talking about player blogs as opposed to Joe fan, but they still are considering the blog as an acceptable form of content – if not journalism.
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