Former SI and Boston Globe writer Greg Bedard reached out to the founder of DK Pittsburgh Sports when he was "formulating his plan" to launch his independent website Boston Sports Journal, according to Chad Finn of the BOSTON GLOBE. Dejan Kovacevic, a longtime sportswriter and columnist in Pittsburgh, "ventured out to start his own website" in '14. He since has hired a full staff for DK Pittsburgh Sports (dkpittsburghsports.com) that "travels to cover the significant beats," including the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates. He said that his site, which charges $3.99 a month or $29.99 for a year, "counts more than 38,000 paid subscribers." Kovacevic said that it is "crucial to have the proper website platform and tech support, something that a career-long reporter might initially underestimate." He said, "People like me who spend a big chunk of their lives at [newspapers] never had to deal with this stuff. ... With something like this, it’s a living organism. He needs to be constantly cared for. There’s social media, production, publishing, the business stuff, writing the captions, commerce is a huge part. It’s everything, and we did it from scratch. The fun part is the journalism. But it is one of countless important parts." Kovacevic and his staff engage readers with "frequent Q&As and meetups in various places." The readers "have a say in what gets covered," and part of the reason Kovacevic "considers it imperative to travel is to give the readers the sense that they are there." Finn notes Bedard "did buy the web platform and app from Kovacevic" for Boston Sports Journal for a one-time license fee. Kovacevic: "You can’t go to WordPress and buy a build-your-own-media-site package. It doesn’t exist." He added, "We built our entire platform at six-figure costs with many mistakes along the way, until we finally ended up with this one. ... It took us three years to get it right. I’ll tell you, it’s about time somebody tries to do it again" (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/21).
