The Athletic ... any thoughts ...

Another defection from BANG: Raiders beat writer Jimmy Durkin joins Bay area site as assistant editor.

 

Assistant or senior editor? Is there a difference?

Either way, BANG lost a great writer. He's going to do well over there. Honestly I wondered when they might extend an offer his way but I really thought he'd end up covering the Niners or Warriors

 

I don't think its a coincidence that so many are from BANG - my guess is the Chron is still stable and paying a living wage.
It's going to be tough to replace the departed though. Sure people will want to work in the Bay Area, but BANG won't pay enough to be able to buy a home within 50 miles, or rent an apartment big enough for a family.

 

His inclusion is, to me, a detriment if his work is focused on opinions. He's a poor opinion-giver. Great takeout writers do not necessarily make good columnists. In fact, they often don't, in part because they don't pace themselves and the emotion/sentmentality that serves them well in longform does not translate well to the column form.

Good columnists know when to hit a single or a double and when to swing for the fences. Takeout writers have "masterwork" on their minds all the time. It's hard to transition between the two.

 

Like any start-up that gets some national attention, it's serving as a landing spot for established people to work with their established friends. The circle gets smaller every time.

 

This is a great point. With the college football and college basketball sites especially, all they essentially hired were out of work national writers. Which, on one hand, is cool to unemployed writers a new gig, but it would have been really cool to see them try to find the next great talent rather than an established one. I had plenty of issues with Grantland, and now Ringer, but they always did a great job of mixing established writers with writers you had never seen before.

 

Yep. Simmons deserves some credit for looking for some new voices.

None of the national hires excite me. At all.

 

And this is why I tend to believe it won't succeed. Out of those national hires, which one is unique enough to compel you to pay $5 a month? There were some good writers hired, no doubt, but I think it'll be awfully tough to get people to pay money for national, general CFB/CBB content when there is so much great coverage available for free.

 

That's why the Ken Rosenthal hire was huge. He will drive traffic.

 

Did you subscribe?

 

I subscribe (though not because of Rosenthal). I live in the Bay Area and have found it worth my four bucks a month. I don't read much of the national content and definitely wouldn't subsribe to see that.