New York Times sells Boston Globe newspaper

The Boston Globe newspaper is to be sold to a Boston sport mogul for 70 million dollars, the paper's owner The New York Times Company said Saturday, dpa reported. The Globe gained renewed national and international prominence with its coverage of April's Boston Marathon bombings, but the attention did little to change the Times' long standing desire to rid itself of the publication. John W Henry, owner of Fenway Sports Group that controls the city's legendary Boston Red Sox baseball team and the Liverpool Football Club, will purchase the New England Media Group from the Times. The group includes the newspaper and its websites as well another regional newspaper and a direct mail marketing company. The New York Times Company purchased the Globe in 1993 from the Taylor publishing family for 1.1 billion dollars with an eye toward building an East Coast publishing empire, but the newspaper was hard hit by the loss of readership to online sources and resulting decline in revenue. When the newspaper was acquired by the Times its circulation stood at around 500,000, but that number has since fallen by half.