Boston Sports Journal Launches With Subscription-Based Platform

BOSTON (CBS) -- The new, subscription-based sports website Boston Sports Journal is up and running Monday at bostonsportsjournal.com.

It's a local website for Boston sports fans, with Boston-based sports writers that have a long history of covering the teams here.

Owner Greg Bedard, who has worked for The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, spoke to WBZ NewsRadio 1030 about his new site, which he started after he was laid off from SI.

"I had some opportunities, but I just thought, if I take a job here or there, I'm maybe just kicking the can down the road maybe a couple of years," Bedard told WBZ NewsRadio 1030. "Because nobody that I've really come across has a good answer about how we are going to do journalism or specifically for me sports journalism now or in the future."

He said some of his Twitter followers told him about a site called DKPittsburghsports.com, started as a solo project by sports writer Dejan Kovacevic three years ago and now grown to include eleven writers who travel with the local Pittsburgh teams.

"I looked at that, and I talked with him, I researched what he was doing," said Bedard. "I just thought, why can't that work on the same level at least in Boston, if not be bigger?"

He said he's specifically going after Boston sports fans from outside the city, trying to make his site a one-stop location for them.

"It's those displaced New Englanders like my father in North Carolina who lives and dies on his iPad trying to get Boston sports," he said. "There's a lot of good content in this market, it's just not all in one place, and that's what we're trying to do."

He said the site will focus on breaking news as well as "really good" analysis.

"Not just opinion, not just straight news stories," he says. "We're really looking for unique coverage, and you combine that with making a connection with the reader and making them feel like they're part of what's going on, then I think you have a winning combination."

Subscriptions are available for $4.99/month, $34.99/year, $74.99 for three years, or a lifetime level of $299.99. Student subscriptions are available for $24.99/month.

"Anybody overseas, anybody active duty in the military, they just need to send us an email and we'll give them a subscription for free because that's the least we can do," says Bedard.