OT: The Athletic - Printable Version

OT: The Athletic - Printable Version

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OT: The Athletic - 2006alum - 10-23-2017

Has anyone subscribed to the new startup local sports new site The Athletic? Long story in the NY Times about it today. Given the decline in sports journalism at ESPN and SI, I've been looking for a new source for thoughtful coverage and opinions. Especially curious if they have good coverage of Pac-12 football/basketball. Thanks y'all!

Re: OT: The Athletic - BostonCard - 10-23-2017

I wish them good luck.Â They hired a few of the former Pac-12 bloggers (including Chantel Jennings), and the one or two preview articles I've seen looked reasonably well-written.Â But it's not for me.

BC

Re: OT: The Athletic - ChicagoCard - 10-23-2017

Chris Dufresne and a few others are also offering are more limited in scope subscription option:

https://tmgcollegesports.com/

I'm not a subscriber yet, but I do enjoy their podcast, https://soundcloud.com/user-223451016

Re: OT: The Athletic - needle - 10-23-2017

David Lombardi writes for The Athletic. His twitter bio says he's their 49ers writer.

For those who don't know, Lombardi is a Stanford grad who covered Stanford football at ESPN (I thought he was the single best source of coverage for Stanford Fball) but was part of that's company's layoffs a few months back.

I'm wishing that The Athletic will succeed. I just don't think that in 2017 there are enough people willing to pay $3.49-$7 per month for sportswriting, however.

Re: OT: The Athletic - SamuelMcF - 10-23-2017

The CEO is getting a lot of heat on Twitter, I suppose for coming across as a bad person and a d-bag. I'm not sure I agree with that; clearly he's an aggressive businessman trying to expand and make his mark (rapidly entering markets after the media layoffsÂ and "poaching" conveniently pink-slipped talent like David Lombardi, for example), but not sure it warrants him being labeled a bad human being. Maybe I'm missing something.

Re: OT: The Athletic - Spiny_Norman - 10-23-2017

Deadspin has written a detailed assessment of The Athletic and what the CEO told the NY Times (which is the source of the twitter activity)

https://deadspin.com/what-is-the-athletics-plan-beyond-exterminating-newspap-1819776358

Re: OT: The Athletic - unclechuck - 10-23-2017

(10-23-2017, 10:22 AM)ChicagoTree link Wrote:Chris Dufresne and a few others are also offering are more limited in scope subscription option:

https://tmgcollegesports.com/

I'm not a subscriber yet, but I do enjoy their podcast, https://soundcloud.com/user-223451016

I thought Dufresne did a great job for Pac 8/10/12 while with the LA Times, and I occasionally posted links to his articles here. I've been full up on his site since it started last year. At $20 for a full year, it's a great value: quality writing by four old school sports guys with regional preferences. They added Tony Barnhart this Fall to get a real SEC/ACC guy, so now have Eastern, Midwest & Southwest, Southeast, and Pacific/West areas of focus, with Dufresne covering the latter and acting as ringmaster.

During football season each guy contributes 3-4 articles per week almost exclusively on college football. College hoops season maybe only 2-3 per week, and maybe less during spring & summer depending on spring ball activity. Occasionally they'll drift off on to Cubs, Red Sox, Olympics or NCAA riffs/rants which are consistently enjoyable, as are their frequent rambles from their multiple decades of covering the games. And:

NO COMMERCIALS / ADS / OR EMBEDDED VIDEO!!

Re: OT: The Athletic - ChicagoCard - 10-23-2017

(10-23-2017, 01:45 PM)unclechuck link Wrote:I thought Dufresne did a great job for Pac 8/10/12 while with the LA Times, and I occasionally posted links to his articles here. I've been full up on his site since it started last year. At $20 for a full year, it's a great value: quality writing by four old school sports guys with regional preferences. They added Tony Barnhart this Fall to get a real SEC/ACC guy, so now have Eastern, Midwest & Southwest, Southeast, and Pacific/West areas of focus, with Dufresne covering the latter and acting as ringmaster.

During football season each guy contributes 3-4 articles per week almost exclusively on college football. College hoops season maybe only 2-3 per week, and maybe less during spring & summer depending on spring ball activity. Occasionally they'll drift off on to Cubs, Red Sox, Olympics or NCAA riffs/rants which are consistently enjoyable, as are their frequent rambles from their multiple decades of covering the games. And:

NO COMMERCIALS / ADS / OR EMBEDDED VIDEO!!

I'll sign up if they offer month-to-month. It's so refreshing listening to their podcast -- as you say, old school folks, no irritating Millennial speech patterns, and no transparent homerism.

Re: OT: The Athletic - CrazedZooChimp - 10-23-2017

(10-23-2017, 09:15 AM)2006alum link Wrote:Has anyone subscribed to the new startup local sports new site The Athletic? Long story in the NY Times about it today. Given the decline in sports journalism at ESPN and SI, I've been looking for a new source for thoughtful coverage and opinions. Especially curious if they have good coverage of Pac-12 football/basketball. Thanks y'all!

I subscribed. It's something like 3 bucks a month, and as a broad interested sports fan it's worth it to me (plus no ads!). I wish their local CFB/Pac-12 specific coverage was better, but it might get there. The national college football stuff (headed up by Stewart Mandel) is very good, their Sharks coverage is good and the 49ers stuff is OK (Maiocco is still the best for the Niners). From what I can tell their Raiders and baseball coverage is good, but I don't really read those, which is fine.

I also love that you get access to all of their coverage, but can specify to see the "front page" or get email announcements for whatever teams you like. I've been able to read great things about, for example, former Shark Patrick Marleau from the Toronto Athletic page even though most of the time I only look at the stuff for my favorite teams (they've also hired some of my favorite ESPN NHL writers who were laid off).

Finally, the no ads is incredibly nice. I wish that my Chronicle subscription gave me no ads on their site. At the equivalent of paying an extra bus fare once a month I can't imagine not subscribing. I can empty my change jar and probably cover it. I also feel like I can't complain about ESPN firing all those writers if I won't pay a couple bucks to read them here (I really hope they can convince Ted Miller to start writing for them...).

I do wish the founders weren't assholes, though. But, they're not running the newsrooms, guys like Mandel and Tim Kawakami (who maybe you think is an asshole) are, and I'm hoping they're getting paid better than they were at their newspaper/ESPN jobs (if they hadn't been laid off).

Re: OT: The Athletic - unclechuck - 10-23-2017

(10-23-2017, 02:17 PM)ChicagoTree link Wrote:[quote author=unclechuck link=topic=17762.msg207570#msg207570 date=1508791547]
I thought Dufresne did a great job for Pac 8/10/12 while with the LA Times, and I occasionally posted links to his articles here. I've been full up on his site since it started last year. At $20 for a full year, it's a great value: quality writing by four old school sports guys with regional preferences. They added Tony Barnhart this Fall to get a real SEC/ACC guy, so now have Eastern, Midwest & Southwest, Southeast, and Pacific/West areas of focus, with Dufresne covering the latter and acting as ringmaster.

During football season each guy contributes 3-4 articles per week almost exclusively on college football. College hoops season maybe only 2-3 per week, and maybe less during spring & summer depending on spring ball activity. Occasionally they'll drift off on to Cubs, Red Sox, Olympics or NCAA riffs/rants which are consistently enjoyable, as are their frequent rambles from their multiple decades of covering the games. And:

NO COMMERCIALS / ADS / OR EMBEDDED VIDEO!!

I'll sign up if they offer month-to-month. It's so refreshing listening to their podcast -- as you say, old school folks, no irritating Millennial speech patterns, and no transparent homerism.
[/quote]

Spot on with your description of the podcast. I enjoy listening to it as background when paying bills or web surfing. Re monthly payments; the site is literally a mom & pop operation with Dufresne and his Stanford alumnus wife running the show. I suspect they'd like to keep their administrative burden minimal, but you can check the site and see.

For me, I did the math: for the 20+ weeks of college football I read and enjoy at least 10 articles a week across the four writers (and random guest contributors). So, for the 20 bucks that's 10 cents a read, with the other 7 months of coverage and podcasts as freebies. As I consider the din, superficiality, mundane prose, and rampant hucksterism of most other media outlets, that 10 cents a read seems like a steal. Lastly, I do choose to view my 'donation' as an affirmation of support for quality writing and honest journalism, bless their battered souls.

Re: OT: The Athletic - SamuelMcF - 10-23-2017

Aaaaaaand here's the CEO's damage control apology:

https://twitter.com/alex3780/status/922595618853306369

Re: OT: The Athletic - rastaman85 - 10-23-2017

(10-23-2017, 09:15 AM)2006alum link Wrote:Has anyone subscribed to the new startup local sports new site The Athletic? Long story in the NY Times about it today. Given the decline in sports journalism at ESPN and SI, I've been looking for a new source for thoughtful coverage and opinions. Especially curious if they have good coverage of Pac-12 football/basketball. Thanks y'all!

I subscribed too. I've found it quite enjoyable where the Warriors, Raiders, and Cubs are concerned, but I'm less impressed with their Stanford coverage so far. Overall college fb coverage is great, largely because of Stewart Mandel. Definitely worth the relatively low cost.

Re: OT: The Athletic - washingtonismoney - 10-23-2017

In a way I think Dufresne's biz model is more sustainable than the Athletic's. I think subscriptions -- and financing expansion out of actual factual revenue -- is a perfectly smart way to build a media business. The NYT article mentions certain media organizations with which I'm intimately familiar, but note that literally none of the other subscription-led outlets on there built their businesses through venture dollars. (They could named even more. Talking Points Memo is another good example.) Anyway, these pubs built their business by creating a good subscription product and hiring and pushing more product from there.

The problem is that (most) venture capitalists expect either strikeouts or home runs, and aren't terribly patient about it. The Athletic's Toronto publication has 10-15k subscribers for $600k/year total. That's a nice business! You can have four-five writers and an editor and have a sustainable publication from there.

The problem is, if you've got a VC wanting a big bang -- say, 10x original investment, for an $80 million business -- the back-of-the-envelope math starts to become tougher. How many North Americans want to pay $60/year? Plenty for a good sustainable business. Maybe not enough for a brobdingnagian business.

Re: OT: The Athletic - unclechuck - 10-24-2017

(10-23-2017, 04:32 PM)SamuelMcF link Wrote:Aaaaaaand here's the CEO's damage control apology:

https://twitter.com/alex3780/status/922595618853306369

Re: OT: The Athletic - CrazedZooChimp - 10-24-2017

(10-24-2017, 01:14 PM)unclechuck link Wrote:[quote author=SamuelMcF link=topic=17762.msg207594#msg207594 date=1508801547]
Aaaaaaand here's the CEO's damage control apology:

https://twitter.com/alex3780/status/922595618853306369

Interesting link. Some ways down in the thread is a link to a business model / mission statement entry by the editor in chief that I found illuminating, having no first hand knowledge of the media business. This complements WIMs thoughts on economic models for these types of enterprises.

https://theathletic.com/40690/2017/02/27/letter-from-the-editor-why-the-athletic-has-a-paywall/
[/quote]

There is a similar "explanation" post from Tim Kawakami, EiC of the Bay Area branch of the Athletic: https://theathletic.com/130220/2017/10/18/kawakami-heres-why-we-have-a-paywall-no-pop-up-ads-no-click-bait-just-the-stories-we-hope-you-want/

And FWIW, lately (maybe still), they've been donating 50% of new subscriptions to North Bay fire relief.

Re: OT: The Athletic - Mick - 10-24-2017

(10-24-2017, 04:29 PM)CrazedZooChimp link Wrote:[quote author=unclechuck link=topic=17762.msg207726#msg207726 date=1508876041]
[quote author=SamuelMcF link=topic=17762.msg207594#msg207594 date=1508801547]
Aaaaaaand here's the CEO's damage control apology:

https://twitter.com/alex3780/status/922595618853306369

Re: OT: The Athletic - ChicagoCard - 11-11-2017

So glad I never signed up to be able to read this full article...

[Image: athletic.png]

Re: OT: The Athletic - CompSci87 - 11-11-2017

Yeah, cry me a river for the Pac-12. Apparently everyone else is supposed to roll over for one anointed team so that the conference can have a champion with the best possible overall record.Â ::)