* Newspaper has infrastructure (could be duplicated).
* Newspaper has branding (tougher challenge; would need to be proactive — guerilla marketing, community outreach, maybe even advertising).
* Can you match the newspaper’s pockets?

I also agree with you about Entertainment. I miss the TV page and the TV news. No one handles radio anymore, except for the P-I once a week. Maybe all the “retired” writers, such as Patrick McDonald and John Hartl can work on a free lance basis.

The newsroom are there and ready for the taking.

Keep pushing, Glenn…….

First of all, yikes! I meant $49.95/year (I made the correction in the blog post).

Some might want to charge, say, $4.95 per month, making the question, “Would you pay five bucks a month to read a professional beat writer, columnist, features, expert content about your favorite team that you otherwise wouldn’t get?” I think a lot of passionate fans say “yes!!” If you look at Scout and Rivals, they have thousands of subs for content that does not even approach the level of that produced by newspapers. When I was there, Scout didn’t advertise and didn’t have the branding, say, The Seattle Times would in Seattle, or Miami Herald would in Miami. We had plenty of sites at the 7,000 sub level, charging $99.95 per year.

I think people like to add coverage of their favorite activities incrementally. So while maybe 50,000 people might be reading free content at my competitor (generating little revenue, so my competitor is in danger of going out of business), I’d be happy with my 7,000. At some point, my competition is going to figure out a better business model or go out of business.

By the way, I don’t think my scenario works on a national basis, particularly for sports, because national news, on some level, is commodity news. There are exceptions, of course. I’d always be willing to subscribe to the New York Times, for example.

It would seem that you would have to offer something clearly “needed” by the sports enthusiast.