The Athletic keeps growing .......

In every market, there is always a flurry of people who sign up at first. Then when the hoopla dies down, it becomes a long, hard slog. You have to “acquire” users, to use some business lingo here, after that. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of money for a product as fungible and non proprietary as sports writing

 

How did Cox's paid subscription numbers compare to The Athletic?

 

Revenue for the Cox verticals was based in sponsorship deals, not subscriptions. Can't compare them apples-to-apples.

 

Cox had some conference-specific beats, but they also had some team-specific beats. I know Land of 10 had a dedicated Michigan beat writer. And it wasn't just football they covered. The numbers weren't enough to sustain things anymore. I am not rooting for the Athletic to fail, contrary to popular belief. Just of the opinion that they are going to lose their shirts in a year or two, tops. When their fawning press coverage dies down, and the real numbers start coming in, I believe I'll be proven correct. If not, more power to 'em.

 

I believe this is the first thing I've read where the author really does crunch the numbers and point out that it's going to be a really hard thing to pull off. My original point was: they've spent way too much money on "star" writers, and they're going to lose a lot of money. Very few writers move the needle in sports WRITING. Will they join just to follow their team? Yeah, but not enough at what these tech bros are paying out. I believe it's all just a cynical strategy of "burning through cash in building a thing up in hopes of getting a big resale" - which is what tech people do. The Athletic Has Over 100K Subscribers, Needs Several Times More to Endure

 

I picked up a deal when I subscribed. I think it was $28 cuz it was some kind of Corey Kluber deal based on his number. It's definitely been worth $28 for a year.

That was more than 50% off. I wouldn't pay full freight. I'd probably sign up for a Kluberish deal again.

I'd bet the average subscription price for those 100K people is around $35, what with all the deals they promote. That adds up to $3.5 million. So, yes, Ragu is correct they'll need those subscribers to keep building. They'll need to maintain what they have and add on in multiples.

 

I don't think the Cox sites had anywhere near the quality of The Athletic sites. The Cox sites were doing some pretty lame updates constantly; the Athletic, for better or worse, is taking an entirely different approach (quality over clicks).

 

The Athletic will have an Alabama beat guy (can’t tie that to a city). They have a UGA guy, but they don’t have an Atlanta site yet.

 

A couple of the laid off writers at Cox have already been hired by Athletic. So there goes the “quality” argument

 

I think the Atlantic is planning to cover every NFL, MLB, NBA, CFL and NHL team. I flipped through their website and they already have more than one beat writer on some teams. I think very few major metropolitan papers only staff the local NFL team with one reporter so I think that the Athletic will have to hire two on the NFL per team and two on MLB. So that is 165 beat writers.

Let's assume they hire one reporter for each of the Power Five conferences and Notre Dame. That is 65 more. Then throw in another 50 for national coverage of the aforementioned leagues and soccer, NASCAR, golf, etc, So we are up to 280. Then another 60 or so in production, copy, etc? And editors. I think editorial staff will have to be close to 400 to cover all the beats they seem to want to eventually cover.

I think the quote about the National paying over 100K to hire away talent came from the editor of a national publication. I don't think many beat reporters at major metropolitan papers covering a pro sports team are making over 100K anymore. Maybe a beat reporter at the LA Times makes 100K in salary and but not in Kansas City or Denver. So let's assign a cost of 125k for salaries and an additional 50K for travel per staffer.

So I can see an editorial budget of 70 million dollars. Now lets add in another 70 million for suits, servers and promotional costs. That's 140 million in total costs so they need 2,300,000 subscribers at $60 a year to break even.

I obviously made all of the numbers above up and probably inflated a few numbers (will they staff every NFL and MLB team with two staffers and one very Power Five school?). But I do think to succeed the Athletic needs a lot more than a million subscribers.

Will they make it? Beats the hell out of me.