The NYT and The Athletic

The accounting for the a subsidiary like the Athletic is often subjective. Lots of assumptions have to be made. For example, I subscribed to both the NYT and the Athletic. I think I was paying $20 a month for the NYT and $6 a month for the Athletic. Now I pay $20 for both. How much of the $20 should be assigned as revenue to the Athletic and how much to the Times?

In addition the Times was able to outsource their sports department to the Athletic. I read there were 70 Times sports staffers and the budget must have been at least 10 million dollars a year. Did the Times finance department assign some of those expenses to the Times or did they charge them all to the Athletic profit and loss statement?

I am not trying to imply that the numbers presented are corrupt, just that in accounting there are a lot assumptions.

 

Is there any outlet covering sports at the national level better than the Athletic? I think it has surpassed ESPN. It seems to me that their coverage is a bit more extensive than ESPN, particulary on college sports. What do others think

 

Depends on the sport, but little doubt The Athletic's bench is way deeper in sports like MLB, NCAAF and NHL. ESPN still seems to care quite a bit about the NFL and NBA, so those are probably similar. Also, Schefter.

 

A fair summary. Though after further reflection I would add Woj as a reason for ESPN's advantage in NBA coverage.

 

If Woj is No. 1, Shams has risen to 1A when it comes to breaking news. Or so it seems to me. ESPN probably still has a huge advantage with Schefter. The folks breaking college sports news nationally seem pretty spread out between ESPN, the Athletic and SI.

One thing I notice with the Athletic is that many of their most-read stories each day are about the Premier League. I didn't expect they'd find that big of an audience there -- only because traditional media stills seems fairly powerful in the UK -- but the Athletic clearly has.

 

Ross Dellinger moved to Yahoo which I think hurt the SI college coverage. I very much like Forde but SI is thin behind him.

 

Their EPL coverage is ridiculously good. Tons of team specific content, tactics gurus, news breakers and overall analysis.