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The Athletic keeps growing .......

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Fran Curci, Feb 3, 2018.

  1. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    As part of their EPL/podcast pushes, they just announced that they added the Totally Football Show and other podcasts under the same umbrella. As a big fan of James Richardson from his time with the Guardian Football Weekly, that’s a good get.
     
  2. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    One castoff lands with the Lakers:

     
    garrow and PaperClip529 like this.
  3. BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo

    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo Well-Known Member

    That's fantastic. Good for him.
     
  4. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    what the hell is Sportico?

     
  5. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

  7. BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo

    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo Well-Known Member

    They're aligned with Variety. Seem to be off to a promising start.
     
  8. Sports Barf

    Sports Barf Well-Known Member

    Interesting name for a media brand. Don’t quite think it has the ring that The Athletic has but it’s good to see some competition enter the ring.
     
  9. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    They own Variety, don't they? And Deadline?
     
  10. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

  11. Golfswing13

    Golfswing13 New Member

    Have not seen this posted, and it's behind a paywall so might not be easily accessed.

    Inside sports media startup The Athletic, where writers describe mounting pressure as subscription growth slows, ad revenue dries up, and live sports come to a halt

    A few nuggets:

    The founders' tech background is felt at the company headquarters in San Francisco, where its marketing, product, finance, and engineering staff are based. Three staffers on the business side described The Athletic's management as "yes men" who always agreed with Mather and Hansmann.

    "The way the company is structured is very much like a boy's club where what Alex says, goes," said a former marketing employee. "If you questioned that, you'd get fired."

    XXXX

    The Athletic reporters have quotas ranging from 10 to 20 stories per month, depending on the sport and if it's in season or offseason, as well as subscription goals. Before the virus hit, former employees said there was growing pressure to crank out subscriptions.

    Staffers have loads of data to figure out what stories drive subscriptions. A Slack bot pulls in stories that accumulate five subscriptions within 24 hours. Stories that hit 100 subscriptions are known as home runs and pieces that generate 500 subscriptions are dubbed grand slams.
     
  12. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    Anything on whether reporters feel pressure to write fluff and avoid investigation that might irritate a fan base and harm subscriptions?
     
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