The Athletic keeps growing .......

I haven't paid that much attention lately, but after reading the APSE twitter feed today, I see that they're opening in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philly, Dallas-Fort Worth .... Anyone know what cities are next?

 

Probably every pro market eventually and a few college markets, too.

It might very well capture young audiences really well. The Athletic is generally hiring young and will work those young reporters hard, I'm sure. ESPN's ducked out of quite a bit and newspapers spend half of their time asking for permission to do good work.

I'll be curious to see if many younger Athletic writers can write hard things. Real criticism that isn't right out of the liberal millennials' playbook. "It's time to fire Coach X because he called an escort service" is an easy opinion. "It's time to fire Coach X because he can't manage the clock" seems easy, but it usually isn't, because most young writers would just as soon write 2,000-word feel-good features about this pro player's charity or this college player's single mom, or what have you, then piss off some coach.

And I'll be curious to see where The Athletic falls. Fans are fans, and they want sugar when warranted, and blood the rest of the time. Journalists are journalists, and like to win awards and colleague approval through takedowns of the most obvious villains or paeans to the 24-year-old who's changing the world, one home run at a time.

 

They also announced launching in New York City as of Feb. 12.

 

What do you mean by that?

 

I’m not familiar with many of the markets The Athletic is breaking into, so for someone who follows more closely: How good are the people they’re hiring in each market?

 

Excellent. Unless you like hot takes.

 

Firing off a hot take about clock manegment is a hard story to write? I thought we were mad at The young writers because they were to flippant with the bombastic and insulting opinions.

Or are you more saying young writers are not so comfortable with protracted, behind-the-scenes fights and back and forths with coaches as perhaps past generations were?

I mean, Bill Barnwell wrote thousands of words savaging coaches for clock/fourth-down management, even doing it with a degree of nuance in certain ways. But I don’t think you’re saying more folks should follow that path, right?

 

The Minnesota team of writers is some of the best the market has to offer on their respective beats.

 

Not really. What Barnwell does is easy in its own way, in the sense that he doesn’t have to co-exist with a coach in a certain market. Athletic writers do.

At some point, when you’re a beat columnist or writer or whatever, you have to risk beimg unpopular if you’re going to be any good for any amount of time. Unpopular in the sense that you might have to get a chilly reception for weeks/months for what you wrote.

I guess we’ll see. I don’t feel like I come at this from an overly negative perspective. I didn’t think Grantland would work, and it didn’t. But I’m probably too focused on sustainability.

 

The Athletic "best on the beat" model makes sense to me. I don't know if it's sustainable, but if you want people to pay for your coverage, it has to be better than what they can get for free. Otherwise you have zero shot. At least The Athletic is giving itself a chance.