Kobe Bryant has signed a multi-million dollar deal with the Chinese web company Sina.com. It gives China's most popular athlete his own site on the web news portal, which will include a blog that he is expected to update multiple times per week. But the real buzz has been around an update to Kobe's personal site, which is asking for a $49.95 subscription fee to read the blog and get access to other premium content.
Bryant's agent, Rob Pelinka, explained why his client chose to go with Sina.com:
"Sina came to Kobe with a vision and Kobe saw it as a way to stay in touch with a huge fan base. He feels passionately about the people and culture of China and having been there as much as he has, those feelings are authentic."
While Kobe's feelings for his Chinese fan base may indeed be authentic, some have called into question his feelings about the rest of us. That subscription fee has fans wondering why an athlete of Kobe's stature needs to charge people to access his site.
There's been plenty of criticism about this little nugget of information, which has mainly been something along the lines of, Hey, Kobe makes millions of dollars, he shouldn't be charging his fans for access to his web site. It's just wrong.
Is it?
Take a look around for the personal website of say, LeBron James. Go ahead, I'll wait. You had some trouble, didn't you? The only one we could find was this one, and it's nowhere close to what a fan would want in terms of content for a website run by their favorite player.
U.S. & World
See, if Kobe Bryant is going to take the time to put together possibly the best athlete site on the web in terms of content and access, well, why not charge for it? It's not like he's under any obligation to do this; he could simply let Nike or the NBA maintain a site for him, and have zero involvement in it whatsoever.
If fans are upset by a millionaire athlete charging for premium content on their website, they simply don't need to pay for it. But the fact that Kobe is willing to take the time to provide his fans with all the content and access that they could possibly desire -- even for a price -- says quite a bit about his commitment to staying connected to those that idolize him.
