The OT will cost 50 cents at newsstands. It features content from Tony Massarotti, Charlie Pierce, Chad Finn and others. There is also an online edition of the publication. The stories are meant to be a little more substantial than what you will get in the regular sports section, with a longer shelf life as well.

In the announcement, the publishers acknowledge that newspaper revenues are sharply declining, and that this is an attempt to get some of it back:

The new publication arrives at a time when newspapers across the country are scaling back staffs and pages amid declining circulation and advertising. To counter those losses, some media outlets are searching for fresh sources of revenue by tailoring new products to niche audiences. OT is aimed at Boston’s voracious sports fans.

“The articles you are reading in this publication are timely but don’t expire after one day,” said Jay Fogarty, vice president of strategic planning for Boston Globe Media, a unit of The New York Times Co. and publisher of several other niche publications, including recent start-ups for fashion, home design, and young women. “It reads more like a Sports Illustrated than a daily newspaper.”

OT will include columns and analysis by boston.com sports bloggers Chad Finn and Eric Wilbur as well as previews of upcoming games involving the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins. The weekly will help readers predict the winners of games and report on fantasy sports. A feature called “Dirt” will chronicle the intersection of sports and gossip. The publication will also have an online component: a blog called “OT online” that will be highlighted on boston.com’s sports section.

Color me a little skeptical about the chances of the long term success of something like this. Will readers pay 50 cents to pick this up? That’s our poll question for today. (see below) I also had a bit of a involuntary shudder at the mention of the “Dirt” feature. Who will be assigned to camp outside Tom and Gisele’s apartment in New York City? Comparing the publication to Sports Illustrated was a little ballsy as well.

I can see the content being better than you’ll get in the paper, Charlie Pierce’s presence assures that. But with so much sports information and content already out there, almost all of it available free of charge, will consumers go out of their way to purchase this? It’s an interesting experiment for the Globe, and the latest in a series of improvements and changes to their offerings.

With WEEI.com in the market, Boston.com and the Globe are locked in a battle with the new radio-backed startup for the attention of sports fans. It will be fun to see what’s next in this new rivalry.

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Globe Launches New Weekly Sports Publication – The “OT” is a post from: Boston Sports Media Watch

Who’s crazier, Manny Ramirez or the Bostonians who grew to despise him?

After taking on Peter Gammons’ contention that Manny has done more damage to the game than Mark McGwire, Pierce, without excusing Manny’s behaviour and actions calls the Boston media, the Red Sox organization and players to account:

For all the murmurings from the fainting couch by the local baseball romantics about how Manny Ramirez failed to respect The Game and did his teammates dirt, these same people seem more than willing to accept the proposition that the rest of your defending World Champions are made of candy glass. Is the poisonous presence of Manny Ramirez the reason catcher Jason Varitek is petrifying almost by the hour, or why Josh Beckett hasn’t thrown a changeup in six weeks, or why most of The Kids have been playing like people who got lost on the way to the AAA park? (Jacoby Ellsbury, the speedy young center fielder who was such a sensation in last year’s World Series, is hitting an abysmal .186 since the All-Star break and has stolen one base since June 17.) And has Epstein himself been so distracted by Ramirez’s performance that he’s failed to notice that his middle relief corps is a landfill?

And later:

In the final game, a grisly 9-2 loss, Beckett was an empty suit. He had nothing on the mound and compounded that by failing to back up home plate at a critical moment. Boston committed four errors, none of them by Manny Ramirez, and generally looked as dead-assed as the Romney campaign. Apparently, this was The Last Straw after which the veterans came to Epstein and delivered themselves of a burden that had grown intolerable. For this, it should be noted, they have been roundly cheered by a local media that generally hate the notion—but not the cliché, god knows—of “the inmates running the asylum” and which spent the past two weeks concocting a Manny-centric alibi for the most underachieving good team in baseball. The inmates are indeed running the asylum here, and they’ve run out one of the most entertaining inmates of all, and now they have no excuses left. I still wouldn’t be Jason Bay for all the money Manny Ramirez ever made.

Charlie Pierce on Manny, Red Sox, Media is a post from: Boston Sports Media Watch