The NYT and The Athletic

Name anyone at that level at any print or online outlet right now.

 

No one. The point is that The National had much more heft behind it and beyond Deford. It was also funded by a billionaire, not a bunch of over leveraged tech bros.

 

The Orioles are in the midst of one of the feel-good stories of the baseball season. So of course, the Athletic is cutting their Orioles' beat guy, Dan Connolly. Friday is his last day. Probably mine as well. My sub was not set to renew until July 1. Cutting two of the major reasons I read the Athletic (VT and O's beat writers) makes it completely worthless. I can get my national coverage from the WaPost or ESPN.

 

I'm with you. On the Orioles part. But it's enough to join the expats.
The hedge fund bros bragged about putting every local newspaper in the country out of business. Then they sold out to the Gray Lady. And then nothing was certain except that the hedge fund bros got rich and ultimately left their people vulnerable to execution.

 

And this on the heels of a Stanley Cup playoffs where they didn't have a Panthers beat writer. Fuck the VC tech dipshit bros (that guy still posting here? Fuck you buddy) and fuck the Gray Lady, which is gutting The Athletic like it gutted its own sports section. But I'll re-up as long as the $1/month deal continues cropping up every Thanksgiving, because that feels like a bigger fuck you than not subscribing at all.

 

They pulled Lightning beat writer Joe Smith around midseason and sent him to Minnesota to double-team the Wild. He tried to cover the Lightning from Minneapolis. He is really good, so the coverage was only lousy, not completely terrible. But no hockey writers in Florida, which has had a Stanley Cup Final participant the past four years in a row.
Their decisions make them look like they don't know what they're doing. Moddy excluded, they obviously don't.

 

Recent stories suggest the Athletic continues to lose millions every quarter, and these layoffs probably won't make much of a dent in those losses. How can they continue to offer these $12/year rates to seemingly everyone for coverage that no longer stands out? Are the subscriber numbers alone worth so much to NYT that they cover the low rate?

 

Dan Connolly got screwed by the Sun and now the Athletic. Hope he lands somewhere decent. Only other option I can think of is MLB.com.

 

Is is that they dont know what they’re doing or that hockey doesnt rate, doesnt matter, doesn’t show in their metrics to be worth anything?

I dont know…. Then you can get into the whole chicken and egg thing about does coverage attract readers or do you cover what the readers want?

But if I had to guess I’d say its more a conscious choice of “lets do hockey poorly bc of this data point” than just not knowing what they’re doing

 

The funny (not funny ha ha) thing is they started out as basically a hockey vertical. Went all-in on those beats and then spread it out. What a bunch of useless idiots.

 

They mostly pulled out of Phoenix a couple years ago (I think with the exception of Arizona State?) and then the Suns made the NBA Finals.
They didn't add an Astros beat writer until this year, after they shipped someone in to to the playoffs and their World Series run last year.

 

Can anyone not complain about these businesses cutting staff and offer a plan that would work? If there were a market, there would be a business.