The Athletic ... any thoughts ...

[tapintoamerica]

I see King douchebag Dejean Kovacevic is taking the The Athletic coming to Pittsburgh well.

Can you be more specific?

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

That's Peter Gammons, by the way.

Oh good, another scrappy up-and-comer welcomed into the fold.

 

[Dog8Cats]

Not to be "that guy," but I'd appreciate better (or more) editing. Read one article that used criterion when it should have been criteria. Most articles have the stray typo or extraneous word. The story on the Phillies' firing of their manager desperately needed some front-line editing to reduce the redundancy ... we get it: now the pressure's on the GM. Don't need to repeat that out every fifth paragraph.

I really appreciated Gammons' article on David Price and the meaning of being a good teammate. The anecdotes that he used in that piece were riveting.

 

[John]

I'm mostly reading the Warriors and college football stuff and for the most part have liked what I've seen -- especially the Warriors coverage during and after the Trump nonsense.

For the average sports fan, I'm not sure there's all that much there to grab them. But maybe they're not really after the average fan.

 

[LongTimeListener]

From the Bay Area's editor-in-chief:

When we launched on Aug. 1, company co-founders Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann gave me and Marcus Thompson II a loose goal for a Bay Area subscription-total they hoped we'd achieve by Aug. 1, 2018, after a full year of operation.

I won't say the number, but we are already very close to hitting that total … after nine weeks.

Kawakami: The Athletic Bay Area update, Kyle Shanahan's...

 

[boundforboston]

I believe this has been discussed before, but Tim Kawakami with a good mission statement:
Kawakami: Here's why we have a paywall — no pop-up ads, no click-bait, just the stories we hope you want
Kawakami: Here's why we have a paywall — no pop-up ads, no...
Kawakami: Here's why we have a paywall — no pop-up ads, no...

 

[MNgremlin]

I come at these things differently, because I'm still very much a fan and view many of these subscription services through fans' eyes. Obviously I get why the need for paywalls and heavy ad presence on newspaper websites, but doesn't mean I have to like them.

Still, as someone who is a fan and very much research-oriented, I like reading and watching as much as I can about the teams I follow and the teams they play. If it's good enough content, I'm willing to pay for it too. The problem you run into in situations like that is how things are broken up. I may follow one newspaper for NFL coverage, but another paper or website for NBA coverage. Subscribing for all of the different services adds up quickly. Even some platforms with a national base have segmented sites. There's a subscription I get for prep sports coverage and recruiting updates around the state to help me follow some teams and even aid my own coverage as a writer, but in the same platform, the coverage for each sport costs separately. That adds up quickly. As a consumer, I have to then pick and choose what I want. A platform like The Athletic, which offers one rate for multi-team and multi-sport and multi-market coverage is very appealing. It doesn't hurt that they're hiring some good writers, either.

 

[Small Town Guy]

This piece, and one section in particular, is being discussed in the Twitter world today.

Why the Athletic Wants to Pillage Newspapers

"We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing," Alex Mather, a co-founder of The Athletic, said in an interview in San Francisco. "We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment. We will make business extremely difficult for them."

Eh, okay!

 

[LongTimeListener]

Sounds a lot like the Deadspin guys who used to say they'll be standing longer than ESPN.

I'm a subscriber and I like it. A daily reader. But I hope none of those people who went over there are kidding themselves -- Alex Mather is in this to sell as quickly as he can, just like any other start-up founder, and what happens to his baby beyond that is of no concern.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

The Athletic is not sustainable and will collapse under its own weight sooner rather than later.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Whole lot of "local papers" out there, fellas. I kinda doubt The Athletic will ravage them all.

And while I say I haven't seen a business plan where online-only presentation provides a solid bottom line, one that can support a complete newsroom, I really haven't seen a business plan where a no-ad, online-only presentation provides a solid bottom line.

 

[JCT89]

Whole lot of "local papers" out there, fellas. I kinda doubt The Athletic will ravage them all.

And while I say I haven't seen a business plan where online-only presentation provides a solid bottom line, one that can support a complete newsroom, I really haven't seen a business plan where a no-ad, online-only presentation provides a solid bottom line.

This. I really don't understand why they beat their chests so triumphantly about having no ads. Don't want to do banner ads? Sure, that makes a lot of sense. Everyone has realized that model doesn't really work. But why not have a primary sponsor? The Ringer has done a nice job of building smart sponsor relationships that don't overwhelm you when you visit the site but also clearly generate revenue.

I think I stated this earlier in the thread but I'm still not buying that the national sites will be successful. The city-specific ones make a lot of sense and I've heard from friends that the Philly and Bay Area ones especially are really good. But I still haven't seen anything from the CFB or CBB specific sites that compels me to need to pay for that content.

Lot of people going to be pulling up Mather's quotes in 2-3 years when it all folds.