Sporting News Today Going To Pay Model Beginning In April

By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

Sporting News Today To Shift To A Subscription-Based Model Beginning In April

Sporting News Today, the digital daily sports news service launched in '08, will shift to a subscription-based model beginning in April, the first major operational change implemented within the Sporting News portfolio since last week's announcement of Jeff Price as the company's new president and publisher. Starting in April, Sporting News Today will begin a free 60-day trial to transition users to the forthcoming pay model. Following that trial period, the subscription will be $2.99 per month. The subscription, however, will allow for full transferability between computers, mobile devices and other forthcoming electronic products such as the Apple iPad for the single fee. "We're going to be device agnostic with this. There's a lot of work yet to be done, but we think this is one step on the way to what we believe will be an enhanced and improved Sporting News Today," Price said. The current free version of Sporting News Today is distributed to a group of people numbering in the low-to-mid six figures, and Price said he estimates the initial conversion rate for the fee-based version will be a percentage somewhere in the "mid-teens to the mid-30s." Price: "From there, an aggressive marketing push will happen." The move does not impact SportingNews.com, where most of the content will remain free, except for some premium elements such as Fantasy Source baseball and football material. Price discussed some of the elements of the Sporting News Today plan Friday at the PaidContent2010 conference in N.Y. Sporting News is owned by American City Business Journals, which is the parent company of SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily.