Greg Bedard's Boston Sports Journal

Writers for that Pittsburgh site definitely travel.

 

1000 subs day one....Wonder what the break even number is or how long it'll take to hit 10k?

 

Don't underestimate the importance to players/coaches/managers/PR/front office people seeing reporters who are on the road and not just at home.

 

Let's say he clears an average of $4 per month per subscriber (factoring in year-long discounts, etc.). With 15k subscribers, that's $60,000 a month and $720,000 a year. He's got four people on staff, right? Each makes $100k including benefits; probably too low, but just spitballing a number. Travel for the year is $200,000 -- I pulled that number out of my ass. That leaves $120,000 a year for servers, bandwidth, app development, etc. Probably needs more, but how much more? The site will have some advertising. Maybe BSJ has one or two money-making podcasts. My numbers are very likely off, but with his name recognition he should be able to work up to 15k, right? I'm a skeptic, but maybe his break-even figures are closer to reality than I thought.

 

especially since you can corner a guy on a team plane and tell him to get the hell out of here

/david price'd

 

One factor that could make this work for Greg is the New England market. It's a region, not just one big city. Places like Springfield, Cape Cod, Hartford, Portland, Manchester, etc. used to have full-time beat reporters who traveled as recently as the late '90s. That travel is long gone, and at many of those regional dailies, it's wire copy for home games, too. I happen to be on the Cape today. The Globe and Herald both ship here in the summer, but it's early edition for paper copies, and it's hard to take the laptop or even phone to the beach for reading. These are markets were he could sell subscriptions if he can raise the site's profile enough to get outside of Rt. 128. There's demand for sports copy out there.

 

How does it help him that "it's hard to take the laptop or even phone to beach for reading"? That seems like it'd equally be a problem for him, too...

 

In summer on the Cape, yes. But it has wire service copy in its local paper (which is pretty good for a smallish regional daily otherwise) on Boston pro sports all year round. That's just an example I'm familiar with. There are plenty of Boston sports team fans in the whole region, and if Bedard can generate copy they like or can't get elsewhere, it's a place he can expand his subscription base.

 

Still have no idea what you meant to add with your extraneous point about devices on the beach...

 

Just bragging I'd been to the beach.

 

I don't know how much of a factor the broad region is going to be. The Herald is free, you can work around the Globe payroll, and MassLive and the ProJo do good work, Plus there is ESPN Boston, CSNNE, WEEI.com, and Barstool, if that's your cup of tea. Many of those publications don't travel, but I read repeatedly on this board that game stories don't get clicks. The counterargument might be if you are not on the road, you won't develop the same access to players, but I don't know that fans pick up on that. And Bedard's film breakdown doesn't require him to be on the road. Anybody could do it.

 

Bedard: Some personal and site news | Boston Sports Journal

Bedard took the national NFL job in Las Vegas. Says he will continue site with less writing on his part, but: