Greg Bedard is back with a subscription website that looks promising. Sean McAdam & Chris Price will be writing for him. Bruins and Celtics beat TBD.
Greg Bedard's - Boston Sports Journal
- Thread starter RIFan
- Start date
If they get the Bruins beat right (and I strongly suspect they will - Joey Mac?), they'll gain a lot of subscribers from Bruins fans. That beat is tremendously underserved.
Would he really leave the relative comforts of ESPN for this venture though? He was one of the lucky ones not to get a pink slip, so he's probably safe for a while.
I know his contract ran through August with ESPN, so based on the announcement saying they have one lined up but can't announce indicates he's probably the one. I run into him from time to time and will ask.
I can't think of anyone else that it could be.
As you noted, the Bruins beat has been embarrassingly bad for a long time now so anything new from this site will be refreshing. I was always a Joey Mac fan at the WWL, it'd be great to have him back on strictly the Bruins beat. They probably could do some real damage if they hire the right hockey guys.
For Bruins, my bet is that it will be Pete Blackburn. For Celtics, an intriguing name could be Real GM's Andrew Perna.
Pete's not really the beat writer type, though it'd be amusing to see him and Haggs working the same day-to-day beat.
Yeah I didn't see any way that would be Pete. He doesn't seem like a grind it out, beat writer, columnist type personality. I say that without criticism - he's built an awesome brand for himself almost completely from scratch, that just doesn't seem to be it.
I'd bet almost anything it's Joey Mac.
I'd bet almost anything it's Joey Mac.
I hope he's successful, but it seems doomed to fail. The number of people looking for informed analysis are limited and in the information age, people are generally unwilling to pay when they can get the gist of it on Twitter in a sentence or two.
Then let's all sign up and make it a success. We have the numbers to be a big part of this working if it's worth it and I'd love a site that could work hand in hand with the best posters we have on this site, SOSH.com and ITP. We want good content lets show it.
Bedard's mid-week analysis in the Globe was stellar. In contrast to what Ben Volin does in that spot now, Bedard frequently offered novel points and was very insightful. I'm inclined to give this a shot.
I wonder what Bedard will do with Price on the Pats beat. Bedard really worked himself up as a national writer with SI and MMQB and this is going to be "hyper local". If he's mainly just managing and posting an occasional piece that would be a shame.
It's an interesting model and one I may subscribe to but really want to know who the other two writers are. The model is predicated on selling the writing talent and as of now, he can't disclose two of the "Big 4". So, to me, the timing seems a bit awkward.
It's an interesting model and one I may subscribe to but really want to know who the other two writers are. The model is predicated on selling the writing talent and as of now, he can't disclose two of the "Big 4". So, to me, the timing seems a bit awkward.
Pats training camp opens next week. 2/3 of the talent on the site is on the football side, so I'm guessing Bedard wants to start pumping out content right away and capitalize on the wave of interest in a new Pats season. McAdam can jump in and has the trade deadline and playoff races to work with. This is the quiet portion of the hockey and and basketball offseasons anyways, so I think he can wait until closer to NHL/NBA camps opening up. Seems he's got the Bruins guy ready to go anyways but he just can't announce it yet.
CHB was saying on the Beetle and Zo show that he knew who the B's guy was but couldn't talk about it
If it's KPD, I am definitely not buying this thing. It was either this past Sunday or the Sunday before, KPD wrote a story about the New England Whalers and their reunion of the first WHA Championship team that was so god damn awful that I almost couldn't finish reading it. Purple prose, "clever" turns of phrases; it was all just such terrible writing. And the thing that sucks, I was interested in reading about it.
KPD loves to be different and literate, but he doesn't have the chops to do it.
KPD and Fluto were the other bullets to dodge and either would turn me into a non-sub. They're worthless to read for free. Blech.
I think Fluto is fine when he actually, you know, writes about hockey. It's the endless foodie tweets and columns. "Hi everyone! Bruins are in Ottawa for a playoff game tonight, but who cares about that, here's my lunch!" If it's KPD they won't get a dime from me.
Those 2 are still employed so I think it has to be Joey Mac. He fits in as a recently laid off guy who has worked the team beat in the past. Same boat as Bedard, Price and McAdam.
Those 2 are still employed so I think it has to be Joey Mac. He fits in as a recently laid off guy who has worked the team beat in the past. Same boat as Bedard, Price and McAdam.
Thanks Chad. This is certainly going to give you more to write about. Look forward to reading about it.
I'll subscribe, at least for a while, just on general principles, probably regardless of who they end up hiring for B's and C's coverage. I like McAdam, Bedard, and Price, and would love to see this type of business model succeed. I tend to agree with Farhad Manjoo of the NYT that encouraging the growing trend of paying directly for content you like via subscriptions is probably the best path forward to get us to a point someday in the future where consuming content on the Internet doesn't generally suck.
Great!
Fluto's last 10 tweets:
NASCAR (7/17)
food (7/16)
food (7/16)
Article on Kuznetsov (7/16)
NASCAR (7/16)
Tour de France (7/15)
NASCAR (7/15)
NASCAR (7/14)
article (by Alex Speier) on Chris Sale (7/11)
Tour de France (7/1)
4 on NASCAR
2 on TdF
2 on food
1 article on hockey (non-Bruins)
1 retweeted baseball article
Nothing about Czarnik signing (7/18)
Nothing about McIntyre and Subban signings (7/14)
Nothing about development camp (7/6)
Fluto doesn't do anything anymore.
The B-Robb news is good too. I agree with Gorton Fishsticks - will be voting with my dollars for this to succeed as well.
One minor disappointment from someone that wants this to succeed - wish they had some sort of signup button or call to action on the site before they started going public, on 98.5 etc to talk about this. GB went on the top rated sports radio show, Felger pumped it up as a major announcement, and yet there's no way to give them my $ or even take an email address to be notified when it goes live.
One minor disappointment from someone that wants this to succeed - wish they had some sort of signup button or call to action on the site before they started going public, on 98.5 etc to talk about this. GB went on the top rated sports radio show, Felger pumped it up as a major announcement, and yet there's no way to give them my $ or even take an email address to be notified when it goes live.
The Athletic seems to be off to a promising start in Chicago, Toronto and a few other markets, although it does have the advantage of deeper pockets than Bedard's site unless he brings in other investors.
Seriously thinking of subscribing just for McAdams. Great hire.
Interesting, DKPittsburgSports has a lifetime subscription option.
https://www.dkpittsburghsports.com/2017/07/22/message-original-lunatics-2014/
https://www.dkpittsburghsports.com/2017/07/22/message-original-lunatics-2014/
Subscribed as a 'Die Hard' this morning--I'm really rooting for sites like this and ITP for those of us who prefer our takes served warm.
He's not going to be right? It says their guy can't start for 3 weeks. It's also probably the deadest part of the NHL schedule anyway