The Athletic ... any thoughts ...

[playthrough]

How does The Athletic's Chicago site compare to ESPN Chicago? That's their competition more than the Tribune or Sun-Times, no? I mean, you should have better content than ESPN's free site.

 

[LongTimeListener]

The big hurdle for The Athletic will come in Year 2 renewals. That's when they'll be weaning off the seed funding and when subscription prices go up. My understanding is that the $48 annual price I paid was an introductory offer and the fee will be $60 or $80 or some different number at renewal time. I'll probably continue to pay it. But how many will? This ain't Netflix we're talking about here, the content isn't so compelling that they can name their price.

 

[Moderator1]

I want them to succeed badly for a variety of reasons, one of them being I have friends and former colleagues there.

But I'm not going to lie, the line about newspapers ticks me off. That shouldn't be the goal. Do great work, make it happen, succeed on your own. We're in it to make others die is not a good look.

I've been busy with our place and keeping up with other things. Have not read a ton from them yet - is it better than what you can get for free? That will be the key to long-term success.

 

[MeanGreenATO]

The Athletic has the same mindset as your local 247/Rivals site that covers State University. There's a sense of urgency in what needs to happen so the cash flow to run the site doesn't dry up. The problem here is The Athletic vocalized that mindset. I don't have a problem with what he said, if we're being honest. As a guy in his mid-20's, you can definitely see a sense of complacency that may not have existed 10 or 15 years ago.

 

[Riptide]

"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."

Mather's quote reminds me of Stephen Miller when he said, "Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."

 

[Moderator1]

 

[LongTimeListener]

I've been busy with our place and keeping up with other things. Have not read a ton from them yet - is it better than what you can get for free? That will be the key to long-term success.

Their technology is better and the daily newsletter is a huge help. I'm not going to click ESPN or wherever else and wade through 100 college football links on the off chance that something might interest me. I almost always read The Athletic's newsletter recap, and the five or six links I see as a weekend preview are more than enough for my tastes.

 

[LongTimeListener]

He's your basic Internet bro. Not a lot different than the Uber or Snapchat CEOs who are complete and supreme assholes. In that timeline he name-checks Bodega, the start-up that's trying to run New York's mom-and-pop shops out of business.

However, I notice a few weeks ago he retweeted this:



This is so freakin' on-point, it should scare the heck out of anyone who continues to work at a newspaper. This does not happen to me on The Athletic's site.

 

[steveu]

What Moddy said earlier. Any site that wants to go in-depth on favorite sports of mine like baseball and college basketball deserves attention.

However, the crass comments about newspapers make me want to stick up my middle finger and say "and the horse you rode in on" to them. I wish them the best of luck, but to paraphrase Barack Obama, "Comments have consequences."

 

[typefitter]

He's your basic Internet bro. Not a lot different than the Uber or Snapchat CEOs who are complete and supreme assholes. In that timeline he name-checks Bodega, the start-up that's trying to run New York's mom-and-pop shops out of business.

However, I notice a few weeks ago he retweeted this:



This is so freakin' on-point, it should scare the heck out of anyone who continues to work at a newspaper. This does not happen to me on The Athletic's site.

Is that real? Jesus.

 

[Gator]

This guy sounds like the perfect candidate to take over the Fyre Festival.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Is that real? Jesus.

I get ads like that all the time for our local large daily.

The platform also isn't conducive for phone use, so all that busy ad stuff often prevents the article from ever loading. I have to close it, go back a step and reopen it, and if it's a Facebook link it sometimes still doesn't work so I have to go to the website directly and find the headline there. That's a big ask of a consumer.

The twitstorm mentioned that he's asking writers to change the way they write. I assume that means analytics drives all and that no matter how much a person might like, say, boxing, fork it about covering boxing if that story isn't going to produce traffic. That's a different world. But paired with the technology and ease of use, it's much better marketing and customer service.