The Athletic keeps growing .......

I suspect they are overestimating the Athletic payroll but also overestimating the revenue. I'm a subscriber and I paid half the $60 a year figure.

 

Yeah, I just renewed for $36. That was surprisingly low to me. I thought their business model was to undercut the first year and then get the long-term revenue set on renewals.

I've been optimistic about their future. Seeing that renewal amount made me less so.

 

Cmon folks, not everybody there is making 150,000 bucks a year. That report can't be right. They aren't paying some of their hires that much. If they are ... my bad.

 

I'm guessing all the hires are paid straight with no benefits? That could easily be 150k when factoring in medical, tech expenses and travel.

 

Some are making more, most are probably making less. I would estimate closer to the $100K mark.

 

I'd go much, much lower. And I'd venture to say that subscription estimate is outdated.

 

I think they are paying people as much as necessary but not that much more. For example, if a baseball beat writer in City X was making $73K, the Athletic has been offering $83K. I have to think they are providing benefits; otherwise would be a lot harder to hire some of these established people. They have also been hiring people who were at the Land of 10 and other Cox sites, and you can be confident those people were making very little (and then were laid off).

 

Right. Some hires have been straight out of college. Why? Because those folks will work for a lot less than established writers.

Even some of the veterans were not getting paid great money at their old shops. A friend was making less than 60K covering national sports for a major outlet. It didn't take 100K to get them to jump, I'll tell you that.

 

I'm curious if there are contracts, guarantees. I think there are few people working in print who wouldn't jump at a journo job that would guarantee you would still be employed for the next 12 months - the business (particularly for established writers) is that tenuous.

 

A good number of beat reporters at Land of 10 and SEC Country were making in the $70K range.

 

I think the Athletic has proven what the model is for independent Websites. If I have read the articles correctly, they've had a lot of individual backers who have put up a lot of money to make the site possible. So if veteran reporters with names get laid off, the key would be for them to get some people to flat out back them. If two people are running the site and there's one technical person, you get some folks who have a lot of money and care about the coverage to back the three of you. Will they do it? Well, the Athletic has proven they'll do it. You get some folks to back you. Case closed.

 

100K if you include benefits? Not farfetched.