The Athletic keeps growing .......

If they get to 50,000 subscriptions at $60/yr in a metro area, that's $3 million of revenue. Figure 10 writers making $75-100K (some stars getting more) in the big markets, a couple of editors and travel costs, and you're probably between $2M and $2.5M in expenses. That's very rough math, but it's conceivable that it can work.

They aren't at 50,000 anywhere yet (I don't think). But they might be at 20,000 in some places, which is pretty good for the first year.

 

They're not. At least a couple of their new hires were lured away from six-figure gigs.

 

Greg Bedard’s site has about 7,500 subscribers after six or seven months, and I think that says a lot.

 

There are certainly some markets where it will probably work better than others. I think an interesting thing to monitor will be after the first year or two. Will they try to hike the prices too far, and start losing too many subscribers as a result?

Part of the current appeal is getting everything you may want in one place for one low price. For example, I got in at $60 for one year. Paying $5 a month for all the content they provide is a bargain. Where is the line between not charging enough and charging too much? $10? $20? More? I'm sure it depends on the person.

I think they'd be smart to ease into any potential price hikes.

 

I think I paid like $19.99 on a heavily discounted rate. I think many/most of their subscribers are in on discounted rates. They're going to have some churn after one year, I fear, which will hurt growth.

 

I can appreciate The Athletic wanting to get away from what newspapers are doing online, but it shouldn't follow that same ideology when it comes to editing. Even the best writers need editing (something lost on most newspaper execs) and readers definitely notice when it's lacking.

 

And therein lies my point. Nobody is perfect. These guys have some of the best writers out there. What would it hurt to pay two or three people, depending on what city the site is based for, to do copy editing/fact checking etc. Sure, I get they want to get away from being like the hard copy, but damn if they won’t run into an instance where having someone do some fact checking or editing won’t benefit them. It could even save their asses on more than one occasion.

 

They have to do without editors if they want to make money. How the hell can you hire editors who in the former model expect to make way more than the writers? If they hire a batch of editors they double, triple, their expenses. Just encourage the people to read each others' copy and if there are errors you change them online. It's just an online venture.
One thing The Athletic has proven with their impressive amount of subscribers is the suits ERRED big time in thinking newspaper readers don't care about big name writers and quality over kids making 25000 a year. Newspapers have been ruined by cutting pages, cutting coverage and getting rid of the incredibly talented veteran writers they had.

 

Set aside errors—based on a couple weeks of reading, it seems like they could use some editing just to help their writers craft their stories into shape. Just because you can write as long as you want to on the Internet doesn’t mean you need to.

Separately, in addition to agate, I’d love if they had for each sport a morning round-up with a short summary of every game and other major news. Again, this is a great newspaper feature I haven’t seen many Internet sports sites replicate. I’m a busy guy—the more efficiently you can deliver me the news the better.

 

One of the great "tricks" Amazon did was using books to get people accustomed to buying things on-line. It was low-risk on their part, books can't break - and they eventually found ways to suck more people in. "Free two-day shipping" leads to Amazon Prime membership...etc. etc. Don't know if The Athletic has similar plans or additional ways to gain more revenue short of ads.