The Athletic ... any thoughts ...

If the Atlantic or the Boston Sports-Journal actually do start to make a profit I wonder if the local paper will unbundle their on-line subscriptions and offer a sports only product at a competitive price.

Also, Gannett must staff close to half the major professional sports teams and Power Five conferences. Could they hire, for example, a hundred people at 100K apiece (I am using round numbers here, I don't think Gannett would pay nearly that much) and staff the teams they currently do not cover. Then they offer a nationwide product at four dollars a month. If the could sell a million incremental subscriptions they could gross an additional 50 million dollars.

 

Been a rough month for the BANG sports staff. Hope he comes out of it okay.
Mercury News Hockey Reporter Stabbed, Suspect Still at Large

 

Bay area site up and running. Kawakami's opening remarks:
Kawakami: Our promise to the Bay Area

 

According to that post, the subscription is more like $73/year. That makes sense to me.

 

Looks like The Athletic is ahead of its time. Perfect timing. Why? Newspapers are "about" finished. Maybe a year or two more before they are all online and they will continue struggling as newspapers' master plan is to thrive as an online only operation. They think they are making advances in ad sales. They are not. More and more grocery stores and car dealerships are only using their own Websites to "advertise" and offer sales. meanwhile, the Athletic is saying, "No ads. We are going to sell subscriptions, yes we are. And people are going to pay because we are going to be so good compared to those trash newspaper Websites that we'll take what we can get through ol fashioned subscription rates."

Guess what, folks: The people that run the Athletic are NOT suits. They are not trying to be TV stations; they are not trying to be radio stations. They are not going to burn out their reporters by making them do inane video clips instead of writing. They will have their people write. Sure if there's time and place for it they might do a podcast or video, but you better believe it won't be these trashy lil videos newspapers are churning out to try to satisfy some clueless corporate types who think they can sell ads off videos to sustain a full staff, lol.
The Athletic will survive. Bank it. The newspapers run by the CEO pocket stuffers WILL NOT.

 

Another addition to the Bay Area page. Will the last employee of the BANG sports department turn off the lights?

 

Love all the Athletic hires. I really, really, really hope The Athletic makes it. But I also wouldn't be bit surprised in two years to see a lot of writers tweeting how it's been a great run but the sites are being shuttered, and newspapers will still be plugging along, however weakened.

 

Heard Kawakami on Richard Deitsch's podcast today and couldn't get a firm grip on how many FT hires they'll have. I think he referenced about four FT reporters and said there will be free-lancers. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of manpower in a market with six (I think) teams in the four major pro sports.

 

I've seen Slater for the Dubs and Marcus Thompson as columnist. Kawakami mentioned Ross McKeon in his opening column, and no doubt he'll be covering the Sharks. Not sure if they've made hires for Niners, Raiders, Giants and A's yet. Maybe waiting on the last two, since their story is not what's happening now, but what happens in the offseason.

Also haven't seen any mention of college coverage.

 

I think something like this can work well because I see it in podcasts all the time. I'm one of many, many people that support some podcasts I love through Patreon or other ways, paying a small amount a month to the folks that make something I really enjoy. Also, you're paying to enjoy something without ad interruption or intrusion.

The Athletic will have way more costs than a podcast, but done smartly I think that a long run is possible. I certainly hope so.

 

Very excited to see the content that will come out of this.

I've noticed their SEO is good. You guys say the app is good. Site design nice and clean. Twitter operation in sync.

Seems like they've got people who know what they're doing on the tech side. That gives it a fighting chance !