The Athletic keeps growing .......

That sinking print product has at least 2.5 million subscribers who each pay (just using myself as an example) well over $120 a year. That's like $300 million. Add advertising. They ought to be able to make something out of that for a long time.

 

First thing I thought of:

"You do what you do
You say what you say
You try to be everything to everyone
You know all the right people
You play all the right games
You always try to be
Everything to everyone
Spin around and fall down
Do it again
You stumble and you fall
Yeah why won't you ever learn"

Now do that stupid dance for me.

 

They can in some ways get away with doing a little bit of everything because most every addition they've made is bringing in a new audience. Some subscribe for NFL coverage, some for NBA coverage, some for NHL coverage. But once I'm in, I'm still able to read something that piques my interest even if it's not what originally got me to subscribe. I appreciate clicking on a link and not getting the "You have 2 free articles remaining" message pop up too.

 

My subscription is $2 for this year. Who pays $120-plus per year?

 

And to think how much tronc executives are paid.

 

Off topic, but Sirius radio is 199 dollars a year. That's too steep. Just too steep for any media. Lot of great music stations and talk stations but 199 dollars? Plus they have 40-50 dollars in fees. Newspapers should not charge more than 60 dollars a year in this day and age.

 

You need to argue better with Sirius. Or quit for a bit. They’ve been begging me for years to come back for at most $5 a month. Alas, I’m a podcast man now.

 

Just checked and yeah they auto charged my card $107 a couple of months ago. Gotta watch that crap. And yes I canceled then after seeing the price. But I get to enjoy it for another year, and then maybe they give me that sweet $2 deal. And maybe a shoe phone.

 

At least newspapers don't robocall the shit out of you.

 

With any magazine subscription, I always write a check, to avoid automatic renewal pain. I believe I paid $20 for a year of SI .... You still find some gems in the magazine, but a lot of mediocrity compared to even recent years. And if there's something really good, I can read it free on SI.com.

 

My current annual subscription is $70. I love it, only thing I listen to in the car and I'm in the car a lot. That said, I would never pay $199 for it but have never come close. I've had it for six or seven years and some times I've had to fight with them and other times they've given me the best rate without me saying anything. Additionally, I don't want to fight with them that often so I take the best annual rate I can get, but if you call them every six months you could probably get that down to $50 or so.