This article is second in a series of paid online content profiles. Each case will be posted on this site as well as included in a list of Paid Content Profiles that you can download by clicking the link
MARY PESKIN | When newspaper publishers look around for a pay model for premium online content, Packer Insider is often at the top of the list. Since 2001, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, Wis., has offered extended Green Bay Packers content to "Insiders" who currently pay subscription fees for specialized content they can't find elsewhere. For $6.95 a month or $44.95 a year, avid fans can access commentary and analysis from regular columnists, including Bob McGinn, who has covered the Packers since the early 1980s, and twice-weekly live chats with Journal beat writers.
Sharon Prill, SVP & General Manager Business Operations for Journal Interactive said, "We knew that the Green Bay Packers had this unique worldwide appeal, based on a lot of things: partly because of their glory years under Vince Lombardi, partly because of their small-town image, and recently because of Brett Favre. We also knew that we had some of the best NFL beat reporters in the country who were great at giving readers analysis and perspective that they couldn't get anywhere else." Because of their unique position, they decided to separate the analysis and commentary from the regular daily news and feature coverage and put it behind the Packer Insider pay wall.
The Packers' fan base is famously dedicated regardless of the team's performance and is one of the largest in the NFL. Packer Insider offers subscribers expert analysis from beat reporters who spend every day with the team, and, in many cases, have been covering the team for decades. "That coverage gives Packers fans an education they can't get elsewhere," said Prill.
When one longtime Packer Insider columnists retired a couple of years ago, a '60ish lady' wrote one of the columnists saying she loved reading him and participating in his online chats because it gave her the knowledge to talk about the Packers with her son who lived half way across the country. According to Prill, other fans have expressed their appreciation to Insider columnists for "no BS, no bias, just great insight." One reader wrote, "I want to thank you for helping me mature as a Packers fan! I used to have 'blind' faith in everything about the Packers. Having followed your columns and read your chat transcripts, I've developed a more conscientious and realistic approach in the Packers," said Prill.
The staff has learned to love the passion of Packers fans even when they disagree with their commentary. "One fan hoped one of our columnists would be buried next to Chicago Bears icon George Halas so 'when we all go to pee on his grave we can just swing around and hit yours!'" said Prill.
Readers have other sources for sports news and game stories about the Packers, but the Insider beat reporters count on the following of the hardcore fans that depend on them for game analysis and insider knowledge of coaches and players.
The Packer Insider experiment was based more on instinct than market research. "Before we launched in 2001, we didn't do any formal research. We just gave it a shot," said Prill. Since then, the Journal has commissioned a couple of research surveys to measure subscribers' response to the product. The survey results confirmed that readers were willing to pay for the columnists and online chats with Insider reporters. In the most recent survey, 86 percent of subscribers said they were "very likely" or "likely" to continue subscribing.
Respondents indicated that they were only somewhat interested in some of the additional features that were put behind the pay wall. As a result, photo galleries, fan blogs, trivia, etc. are offered on the site for free. Today, Packer Insider has a very simple formula: Analysis, commentary and online chats with reporters. To grow audience in the future, they are considering bundling the premium site with their print publication, Packer Plus, a paid print product with limited distribution via mail and sold at selected retail outlets in Wisconsin. For the newspaper subscriber, the added value of Packer Insider is not as great since many of the columns also appear in the print edition.
The staff believes that subscribers like the content because they hear from enough of them to know. Despite the hundreds of thousands of Packers fans across the world, the number of subscribers is still relatively small. The pay model for online editorial content remains a tough sell. Packers' devotees, as well as other NFL fans, can find sports news and analysis in many places, such as ESPN, other newspaper sites, fan sites and team sites. "Even on our own site, most of the Packers' content is not behind a pay wall," Prill said. "We have been successful compared to other efforts by newspaper Web sites to sell niche content, but the numbers still are not great."
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