08-20-2019, 12:27 PM
As of today The Athletic has 400 writers. I don't know how much each is paid, but let's for a placeholder say each costs $100k annually.
It was reported in Bloomberg today that the site has hit 600k subs and they pay an average of $64.year. I'm not sure how true this is, as most people including me are on intro deals for like $3/mo or something like that. Anyway... using those numbers, the site is grossing about $38.4 million at the current time. If 400 writers get paid $100k = $40 million writer expenses, plus G&A. They project to have 1M subs by year end. That seems aggressive, but let's say they do. Now they are at $64M in revenue. If they don't hire more than 100 more writers, they'll be profitable by year's end.
I don't understand how people are skeptical The Athletic can survive. It has people paying for its service in great numbers and it has room to grow. Is the thinking that you can't survive without selling ads? Is the thinking the site must add video content? I don't get the skepticism.
It was reported in Bloomberg today that the site has hit 600k subs and they pay an average of $64.year. I'm not sure how true this is, as most people including me are on intro deals for like $3/mo or something like that. Anyway... using those numbers, the site is grossing about $38.4 million at the current time. If 400 writers get paid $100k = $40 million writer expenses, plus G&A. They project to have 1M subs by year end. That seems aggressive, but let's say they do. Now they are at $64M in revenue. If they don't hire more than 100 more writers, they'll be profitable by year's end.
I don't understand how people are skeptical The Athletic can survive. It has people paying for its service in great numbers and it has room to grow. Is the thinking that you can't survive without selling ads? Is the thinking the site must add video content? I don't get the skepticism.