Paying for online football journalism

[aka Dus]

Have any of you tried The Blizzard yet? An offline/online footy magazine with serious (long form) writing. http://www.theblizzard.co.uk/

 

Do any of you subscribe to WSC?

 

How much of it is worth paying for anyway - do you think the crowd sourced writing across the fora have enough content or would it be the case that if the professional football writing was taken out of it then the fora would get boring fast?

[Gunga Din]

i subscribe to WSC, but the paper version, where it gets read through the month from the comfort of the jacks. i like it and i think it has plenty of decent articles, but the rest of what i take in is more fans blogs, forums etc. only so many hours in the day i have to spend online reading about footie

[aka Dus]

Yep, same for me with WSC, though I don't subscribe. And the time thing - this Blizzard Football is quarterly so it's ideal for leisurely offline reading - I have multiple books by all the journalists they have writing for them so far and the quality is excellent, even if the subject matter isn't always interesting.

 

Do you subscribe to the Times? If not, If the Guardian went pay wall, would you subscribe? Or the Indy or Telegraph or which ever paper you use.

[Gunga Din]

Yep, same for me with WSC, though I don't subscribe. And the time thing - this Blizzard Football is quarterly so it's ideal for leisurely offline reading - I have multiple books by all the journalists they have writing for them so far and the quality is excellent, even if the subject matter isn't always interesting.

 

Do you subscribe to the Times? If not, If the Guardian went pay wall, would you subscribe? Or the Indy or Telegraph or which ever paper you use.

 

dont subscribe to the Times for the simple reason that anything of any interest is usually copied and pasted somewhere within minutes. I wouldnt subscribe to the Guardian either if it went paywall for the same reason.

[aka Dus]

dont subscribe to the Times for the simple reason that anything of any interest is usually copied and pasted somewhere within minutes. I wouldnt subscribe to the Guardian either if it went paywall for the same reason.

 

Yeah that's the main reason isn't it. But if the Times, Guardian, Indy, Telegraph, Mail etc all went pay wall I wonder how they would all perform. The Guardian say they are in the process of prioritising their digital edition - none of the digital editions of any of the papers can be making that much money but the money to pay for all this football writing has to come from somewhere.

[Damian_de]

A lot of it is pish though, IMO. See the garbage written abut our match last weekend.

 

The Guardian's senior writers produce a lot of terrible filler, I would rather see 50% less coverage and pay for quality. I'd never pay for their site as it is.

[JonShar]

A lot of it is pish though, IMO. See the garbage written abut our match last weekend.

 

The Guardian's senior writers produce a lot of terrible filler, I would rather see 50% less coverage and pay for quality. I'd never pay for their site as it is.

 

Guardian usually does a decent write-up of our matches. That one last week was shocking - "Bellamy made his debut but made no impression" - that guy obviously has an agenda... there was another article he did last weekend that slammed us too.

[Zoob]

Guardian usually does a decent write-up of our matches. That one last week was shocking - "Bellamy made his debut but made no impression" - that guy obviously has an agenda... there was another article he did last weekend that slammed us too.

 

If you mean Sachin Nakrani, strangely enough, the guy is a Liverpool fan, and meant to be a nice chap too (my brother has met him a couple times as he went to school with one of his best mates). Was an awful article he wrote though. Everything about it was very, very bad.

[goodrobotusses]

I'm a subscriber to The Blizzard. Pay full whack for the hard copy versions. Generally get FourFourTwo and also have a copy of Green Soccer Journal (or something like that) lying around somewhere, which looks decent (haven't got around to it yet). I read an awful lot of football stuff and will pay for it if it's good value, yeah.

 

On that note, I went to the Blizzard Q&A at Rough Trade in London the other week and Jonathan Wilson said that they need more people to buy it if it's going to succeed. At the moment people are writing for it out of goodwill. The problem they have is that it's the buzz thing on the football blogosphere/Twitter but no bugger outside of that loop knows it exists. To be honest, though, I think that's what the majority of its audience is ever going to amount to. The layman football fan doesn't want to read 2,000 words on the golden age of Indian football (incidentally, that was a pretty good article).

[muleskinner]

Blzzrd is about 25 quid or something isn't it? Or a pay what you like download?

[aka Dus]

I'm a subscriber to The Blizzard. Pay full whack for the hard copy versions. Generally get FourFourTwo and also have a copy of Green Soccer Journal (or something like that) lying around somewhere, which looks decent (haven't got around to it yet). I read an awful lot of football stuff and will pay for it if it's good value, yeah.

 

On that note, I went to the Blizzard Q&A at Rough Trade in London the other week and Jonathan Wilson said that they need more people to buy it if it's going to succeed. At the moment people are writing for it out of goodwill. The problem they have is that it's the buzz thing on the football blogosphere/Twitter but no bugger outside of that loop knows it exists. To be honest, though, I think that's what the majority of its audience is ever going to amount to. The layman football fan doesn't want to read 2,000 words on the golden age of Indian football (incidentally, that was a pretty good article).

 

I paid the £3 RRP for all three digital editions so far. I haven't started in to them yet but I have books belonging to practically every writer they have used so it has to be decent at least.

 

I think it's worth paying for to encourage, on one level and on another I think that high quality football coverage cannot stay free forever. Before too long I think paywalls of sort will become more popular for high quality coverage - and I am not talking about match reports, rather commentary on niche areas from experts by the likes of Sid Lowe, Jonathon Wilson etc. What the Guardian does next will be very interesting, even if the Times isn't pulling up any trees with their paywall, the paywalls will only work when most if not all 'quality' outlets start doing it.

[Stevie H]

I'm a subscriber to The Blizzard. Pay full whack for the hard copy versions. Generally get FourFourTwo and also have a copy of Green Soccer Journal (or something like that) lying around somewhere, which looks decent (haven't got around to it yet). I read an awful lot of football stuff and will pay for it if it's good value, yeah.

 

On that note, I went to the Blizzard Q&A at Rough Trade in London the other week and Jonathan Wilson said that they need more people to buy it if it's going to succeed. At the moment people are writing for it out of goodwill. The problem they have is that it's the buzz thing on the football blogosphere/Twitter but no bugger outside of that loop knows it exists. To be honest, though, I think that's what the majority of its audience is ever going to amount to. The layman football fan doesn't want to read 2,000 words on the golden age of Indian football (incidentally, that was a pretty good article).

i've often wondered how world soccer magazine has kept going for so long when its audience is a pretty specialised one. i think it must benefit from being under the same umbrella as kicker, gazzetta dello sport, don balon and other similar publications in other countries.

[aka Dus]

i've often wondered how world soccer magazine has kept going for so long when its audience is a pretty specialised one. i think it must benefit from being under the same umbrella as kicker, gazzetta dello sport, don balon and other similar publications in other countries.

 

Don Balon is dead Stevie. Laid to rest last week. Calcio Football is gone too. Kinda what prompted the thinking process around the future of paid for football journalism.

[Stevie H]

Don Balon is dead Stevie. Laid to rest last week. Calcio Football is gone too. Kinda what prompted the thinking process around the future of paid for football journalism.

oh really? that's a shame. i'd worry for the future of world soccer in that case.

[goodrobotusses]

Blzzrd is about 25 quid or something isn't it? Or a pay what you like download?

It's £35 for a four issue subscription, which I think is pretty good. The hard copies are big b******s and look lovely.

 

http://www.theblizzard.co.uk/product/4-issue-subscription-uk/

 

i've often wondered how world soccer magazine has kept going for so long when its audience is a pretty specialised one. i think it must benefit from being under the same umbrella as kicker, gazzetta dello sport, don balon and other similar publications in other countries.

World Soccer recently signed a deal with the In Bed With Maradona blog to take their best postings for their own blog (my Marcelo Bielsa piece ended up on there, CLANG) and I think the odd one for the magazine. If they're chasing free content like that then it stands to reason that they're in trouble.

Edited September 15, 2011 by CJMcDonald

[Hightown Phil]

The Blizzard is brilliant. It's basically a 200 page book for all intents and purposes. Great read on some completely differing subjects.

[aka Dus]

The Blizzard is brilliant. It's basically a 200 page book for all intents and purposes. Great read on some completely differing subjects.

 

I agree, been very impressed with it. I think a lot of people here would enjoy it and get good value out of £3.

[Stevie H]

i don't know if the blizzard would ship to where i am. i'll have to ask them, it sounds good.

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

oooh - I like this

having been thrown out of the tournament for fielding ineligible players when they beat Celtic in the qualifying rounds, Swiss side FC Sion claim to have won a court injunction that invalidates Atletico Madrid's 2-0 victory over Celtic and Udinese's 2-1 win against Rennes in the Europa League last night. Sion says the ruling in Uefa's home canton of Vaud means the competition's Group I is invalid if the Swiss club is excluded.

 

Uefa say they were not represented in court, and had no comment on Sion's latest legal action. Fifa's world football statutes forbid clubs going to civil courts to settle disputes.

Sion has challenged Uefa on several fronts since being expelled from the Europa League.

[Bailo]

You f***ing idiot Macca.

[Cunny]

I get the digital version of Blizzard at £3 an issue.

It's a quality read.

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

You f***ing idiot Macca.

balls, was hungover...

[John am Rhein]

Kinda what prompted the thinking process around the future of paid for football journalism.

 

hopefully the end is in sight