Boston Globe sold to owner of Red Sox baseball team for $70m
THE New York Times has agreed to sell The Boston Globe to the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, John W Henry, for $70m (£45.8m) in cash, ending its 20-year ownership of the paper.
The transaction includes the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, related digital properties of both papers, and a direct mail marketing company.
The sale caps years of uncertainty for the Globe, which was put on the auction block twice.
The price is less than a tenth of what the New York Times paid for the Boston Globe when it bought the paper for $1.1bn in 1993. It bought the Telegram & Gazette for about $300m in 2000.
The New England properties were the last pieces of a once much bigger empire.
The New York Times Co has sold off everything – TV and radio assets, dozens of US regional papers, digital companies, and its stakes in sports ventures – to focus solely on its flagship and international edition. “As a result of this agreement, we will be able to sharpen our company focus on and investments in The New York Times brand and its journalism,” said Mark Thompson, chief executive of The New York Times.