The Athletic keeps growing .......

I don't know exact numbers, but everyone I talk to who works there says they are ahead of the benchmarks they've set.

 

Richard Deitsch had an interesting podcast with her a few months ago.

 

The volume *is* different. And since it's all at one site, you don't have to do local coverage in one spot and national coverage at another site. That's The Athletic's advantage.

But the actual content? It's a lot like what you'd get at a newspaper. Know why? Because they hired a shitload of newspaper reporters.

 

I don't know why you're setting up that kind of straw man. Nobody is claiming that what they are doing is revolutionary. What they are doing is poaching the most authoritative voice on each beat in a given city and telling them to devote all of their time to writing and reporting beat-driven expert-type analysis and trend stories instead of trying to work that stuff into a schedule that is dominated by hanging out at lockers for hamstring updates and groveling at the cell phones of agents for transaction tidbits and sprinting from the press box to the locker room and back again on deadline. And then they are marketing the hell out of those writers and making it easy to find them on a navigable, minimalist website/app.

To which the standard newspaper editor response is, "Well, who will write the gamer? Who will write the notebook? Who will write the hamstring update?" Valid questions, I suppose. But, the fact is, the Athletic has positioned itself as the place to turn to for premium content from the market's most authoritative writers. Their target demographic gets all the nuts and bolts from Twitter or a quick scan of the headlines. Then they go to the Athletic to get beat-driven content that they can sink their teeth into.

Like I said, a lot of the Athletic's success is marketing the talent they have. But a lot of it is allowing that talent to do the work that truly separates them from the locker-crowding hordes.

 

Yep

 

Sounds like straight from an Athletic marketer sales pitch.
Look, nothing you’re doing is amazing or different. Newspapers did it all previously. Newspapers are why any of you got a start in this business at all.
When any of you can write the truth in any of your bullshit “Why I joined the Athletic” farce pieces - “Why I joined the Athletic - because otherwise my ass was going to get laid off just like the rest of ‘em, until a couple of rich tech bros came along to float me for a while longer” - then we’ll actually start to respect you more.

 

They’re excellent. Just take their word for it.

 

Sounds like you have cashed your last unemployment check.

 

I wish the Athletic's bosses -- whoever they might be -- were being more disciplined about who and how they are hiring. Too many stories reflect long-windedness of unedited writers, and some of the writers are really ordinary. That said, I think their model is pretty good. For example, I'm a big Indians fan. I might watch the game on MLB.TV ...... surely I'll check the box on any number of sites. I'll see some thoughts on Twitter. So I'm fine waiting until the next morning to read a good piece from The Athletic. If it's good.....

 

Eff off prick. I’m just engaging in honest debate.

 

At a newspaper maybe a decade or so ago. I'll just go with two newspapers that I used to read the most regularly, The Star-Ledger and the NY Daily News.
A decade ago those sports sections offered a lot more than they do today. Not going to knock anyone at those places because they both still have some
good people, but it's nowhere near what it used to be. If The Athletic can get closer to what the local papers used to be more power to them.

 

I think people are perplexed by the Athletic because the only things keeping it afloat (it seems) are the dollars generated not from ads, not from subscriptions, but from rich donors. Should newspapers try to do the same thing? I think skeptics are foreseeing the day either a.) the Athletic is sold to somebody so the donors can make some money off it or b.) the plug is pulled and poof The Athletic goes away.