The Athletic keeps growing .......

I made all the numbers up and said I probably inflated a few. Though I will note that so far the Athletic website says they cover 10 colleges so far. One of them is Cincinnati. If they are going to staff Cincinnati I bet they cover more than 25 colleges.

But I think they are going to have to hire a lot staff. Right now they have do not seem to have any staff in among other places Houston and Atlanta. I think they are going to hire local writers to get any significant subscription base in a market.

 

Actually, to this point I'm unaware of anyone hired by The Athletic since the Cox sites went away. The Wisconsin writer did leave Land of 10 for The Athletic, but took the job prior to the Cox layoffs.

 

Not at all. Those same writers might be better if they were a) edited differently and b) not asked to do constant low-impact updates.

 

An Iowa beat writer was hired by The Athletic after the Land of 10 announcement. That's the only one that I think applies. The Wisconsin writer took the job before the announcement.

 

Go read Jesse Temple and kindly tell me that again.

 

Just curious as we try to get a grip on the Athletic's viability and future: Do you (any poster who chooses to answer) subscribe? Why or why not?

I don't. It's tempting for just $40, but I get enough sports fixes without it that I'm not willing to spend the money. I have my core favorite teams and read about them on various local newspaper sites (philly.com, nydailynews.com, nypost.com). I landed free subscriptions to both SI and ESPN by taking surveys on a reward site. I just really don't jones for more copy.

 

I did a free trial week not long ago. Wasn’t blown away. Mostly just run-of-the mill features you can find too many other places. No real news breakers. Photography is stock. Layout is bad. They have their “latest” stories so far down the page you often miss them. They have four-, five-day old stories up higher on the page very often.
I mean, it’s competent content. Just, yawn, nothing groundbreaking, nothing making me open the wallet.

 

I took the plunge. I am a Denver sports fan and they got pretty much the best local writers left anyway. The Denver Post has a solid paywall now, where I would have gotten most that information from before anyway, and I don't believe their overall product is even close to worth their fees. And you get all the Athletic's content on top of it. I feel with the talent they have and the content they are producing right now, $40 is worth it. We'll see how I feel in a year. And I spend more than $40 a lot more quickly on much more trivial stuff.

So far I read several stories easily a day, across the board, and it always seems like there is a tweet or post somewhere that catches my eye to look at even more stories. Guess that could said for free outlets too but in the early going I'm happy with it.

 

Good Take I don't see enough of:

The Athletic is a good substitute for your local newspaper, in part because your local newspapers' best writers have been lured away by The Athletic, but also because in general most local newspapers are run by very stupid companies that think the quality of reporters doesn't matter. It can succeed as a local product and should stick around for years to come. I am rooting for it to succeed and think highly of its hires, if not it's frat boy owners and their penchant for shit talking.

Hilariously Bad Take I occasionally see:

The Athletic is going to be the new ESPN.

You know, ESPN, that television network that has negotiated billions and billions of dollars in sports rights deals, the one that, even though it has lost a big chunk of cable subscribers, still MAKES $6.2 billion per quarter. Per quarter.

 

I agree it is a good substitute for a local paper. But is it a substitute that people are willing to pay for? I subscribe, and I like it, but are there enough sportsfans for whom the coverage they can get, for free, on TV, radio, ESPN.com, Twitter, fan blogs, Reddit, etc. is insufficient?