SEC Football = Paid Content

For the last couple of years people in the newspapers industry have debated how to get people pay for content on the web. Maybe the Southeastern Conference has the answer. The State, the state newspapers of South Carolina, announced Thursday that they would be charging people for access to their cover of University of South Carolina sports.

"In the coming days, we will begin charging a modest membership fee to access a new and improved GoGamecocks.com web site. Memberships will be available for $50 per year (less than 14 cents per day) or $10 per month,'' according to the story.  

The State is the not the first newspapers to move toward paid content with its sports coverage. Last year, the Tuscaloosa News made the Tide Sports Extra a paid site. The site covers University of Alabama sports including the defending BCS National Champions. The company charges almost $60 a year or $10 a month for access to their site.

With this moving being made could more sports departments around the country do the same thing, especially in the SEC territories, where football coverage is king. Maybe hard news will not make the right amount of the money on the net, but sports on the other hand might be the one to drive it. Sites like ESPN have even turned to paid content, their Insider section, to balance their Internet books and it seems to be a success. So maybe the newspapers in the SEC towns will do this first and the rest of the country will follow, its just a thought.