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Athletic, Axios talking merger?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by FileNotFound, Mar 26, 2021.

Page 7 of 37
  1. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    I like it too, and I am hopeful for its success.

    It's very good for a serious hockey consumer. I kid a couple guys there about how they re-tweet each others' stories, saying how they are the greatest stories ever written -- but all in good fun.
     
    Elliotte Friedman, May 7, 2021
    #73
    ChadFelter likes this.
  2. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    I want something impossible. I want everyone working there to have a lucrative, happy and fulfilling career. And I want the smug hedge fund bros who began this venture by grave-dancing on newspapers to suffer humiliation and financial ruin.
     
    tapintoamerica, May 7, 2021
    #74
    HappyCurmudgeon, 2muchcoffeeman, sgreenwell and 1 other person like this.
  3. Sports Barf

    Sports Barf Well-Known Member

    Am I allowed to chime in critically about this, or am I still just jealous I don’t work at The Athletic? Because this is just rich. They gonna try to merge with Highlights for Children next?
     
    Sports Barf, May 7, 2021
    #75
  4. BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo

    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo Well-Known Member

    Gallant expanded slowly and understood the delicate nature of building an Internet-era media entity. Goofus made lots of splashy hires and promised to destroy newspapers.
     
    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo, May 7, 2021
    #76
    HappyCurmudgeon, HanSenSE, sgreenwell and 3 others like this.
  5. ChadFelter

    ChadFelter Active Member

    ChadFelter, May 8, 2021
    #77
  6. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    It would make an immense amount of sense for Gannett and the athletic to merge. If the Athletic has more than a million subscribers that would really boost Gannett's electronic presence. I would guess the Athletic national staff and USA Today come be combined. And the local Gannett papers probably staff at least 25% of the Athletic's beats so that overlap could be eliminated.

    I don't know if Gannett could swing the deal given their mountain of debt.
     
    LanceyHoward, May 8, 2021
    #78
  7. ChadFelter

    ChadFelter Active Member

    no shot Gannett could come up with the money
     
    ChadFelter, May 8, 2021
    #79
  8. Screwball

    Screwball Active Member

    I could see why The Athletic is trying to pitch the NYT on this: We need to cash out, and you need real sports coverage.

    I have a harder time seeing why the NYT would bite: The Athletic staff is expensive, and the idea that Athletic readers are going to be fine renewing at the current annual NYT sub rate of $221 -- a figure that probably would increase to cover the costs of The Athletic's work -- seems far-fetched.
     
    Screwball, May 8, 2021
    #80
  9. BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo

    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo Well-Known Member

    A bunch of journalism veterans escaping papers owned by corporations and hedge funds only to have their life raft bought by Gannett would be some cruel, cruel irony.
     
    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo, May 9, 2021
    #81
  10. Severian

    Severian Well-Known Member

    If the NYT acquires The Athletic and, somehow, agrees to not touch the staff's salaries, then the paper's management will find themselves in the middle of another civil war because no way will a Times staffer making $80K stand knowing a one-a-week tennis columnist makes double his salary.
     
    Severian, May 9, 2021
    #82
    PaperClip529 likes this.
  11. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    The New York Times has 6.8 million subscribers. Of that group 1.7 million are subscribers to the Cooking and Games sub package which costs $40 a year. I would think the Times could also offer the Athletic as a sub-package if they acquired it.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2021
    LanceyHoward, May 9, 2021
    #83
    ChadFelter likes this.
  12. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    You can say that about anyone who might acquire The Athletic.

    You could also say that the Times could acquire the Washington Post and just offer a Washington Post sub-package, right?

    I'd guess that the costs the Athletic is incurring to produce its content are way, way, way greater than the costs the Times incurs in producing its cooking and games package. Which makes it very different. Hand-in-hand with that is the fact that the cooking and games content is standardized for all of its subscribers. The Athletic has subscribers sprinkled all over the place many of whom are only really interested in one sports market. Which means that the million or so subscriber to the Athletic aren't really like the 1.7 million subscribers to the NY Times cooking package. The Athletic may be more like 50 different (or however many markets the Athletic is in) NY Times cooking and games packages with each having a subscribership in the thousands of people, not 1.7 million.
     
    The Big Ragu, May 9, 2021
    #84
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