MLB to open Online Newspaper

MLB Advanced Media will formally announce today that in May it will debut what’s meant to be a online baseball newspaper featuring columnists, including NBC/MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

MLBAM Chief Executive Bob Bowman says the idea is to create a brand and website that’s separate and largely independent from mlb.com.

Bowman says the as-yet unnamed site will try to offer “a newspaper look — big pictures and big headlines — because it’s an effective way to communicate. Not necessarily ‘Headless Man Found in Topless Bar’ headlines, but we want a tabloid look. We don’t want it to just look like news items and a series of blogs.”

Sounds pretty 20th century. But that’s OK, says Bowman: “I like to think there are columnists who are out there and not being read like columnists were when I was growing up — and the only thing against them is that they’re, say, 52. That doesn’t disqualify them for me.”

Bowman says mlb.com gets a whopping 60 million unique users per month, which is higher than its Nielsen traffic measurements, during baseball season. But Bowman says he doesn’t want the new site “to just be an adjunct” of mlb.com: “The facts are on mlb.com. But people like to read what people think.”

Still, one wonders how MLB owners will react if their own site runs a screaming headline such as, “Brainless Man Found in Team Owner’s Box.”

Hinted at in the Olbermann article, expanded upon in this article.