Will Sports Fanatics Ante Up Online?

摘要

ESPN The Magazine, the decade-old print offshoot of Walt Disney's wildly successful cable sports network, is about to begin charging for access to its Web site. In August the company will essentially shutter its espnthemag.com site and merge almost all of the magazine's Web content-which includes articles and ongoing Web video series-rninto its ESPN Insider service, which costs $6.95 a month, or $39.95 a year. (The Insider will continue to be free to magazine subscribers for one year.) At a time when many media companies are merely jawboning about demanding fees from online users, this magazine is doubling down on it. More broadly, such a move by a well-known name will plumb whether a paying customer equals a more enthralled customer-the term in the trade is "engaged"-and a more valuable target for advertisers as well.