The Athletic

For similar terms, see Athletics (disambiguation) and Athletic (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with The Atlantic.
The Athletic
Type of site
Sports journalism
Available inEnglish, French (Montreal only)
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
United States
OwnerThe New York Times Company[1]
Created by
  • Alex Mather
  • Adam Hansmann
URLwww.nytimes.com/athletic/
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedJanuary 2016; 8 years ago (2016-01)

The Athletic is a subscription-based sports journalism department of The New York Times.

It provides national and local coverage in 47 North American cities as well as the United Kingdom. The Athletic also covers national stories from top professional and college sports. The Athletic's coverage focuses on a mix of long-form journalism, original reporting, and in-depth analysis. Its business model is predicated on dis-aggregating the sports section of local newspapers, and reaching non-local fans not reached by a local newspaper.[2]

The Athletic was founded in 2016 by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann as an independent subscription-based online sports magazine, and it gradually expanded its stable of writers over the next few years to provide better coverage of more teams in more markets, including in the United Kingdom. However, the magazine remained unable to earn enough revenue without advertising to make a profit, and the owners began to seek an outside buyer. The New York Times Company acquired The Athletic for $550 million in 2022, initially as a semi-independent entity under the continued direction of Mather and Hansmann. In July 2023, the company dissolved the New York Times' existing sports department, laid off or reassigned its sports staff, and began operating The Athletic as a replacement sports department under new management.[3]

Coverage

[edit]

As of 2022, The Athletic provided local coverage in 47 cities and regions of North America as well as coverage in the United Kingdom.[4] It includes the 32 National Football League teams, the 30 Major League Baseball teams, the 30 National Basketball Association teams, and 23 of the 32 National Hockey League teams.

History

[edit]
The Athletic app logo

The Athletic was founded by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, former coworkers at subscription-based fitness company Strava, with the mission of producing "smarter coverage for die-hard fans."[5] The company was built as an alternative to the struggling ad-supported models.[6] The Athletic relies on subscription revenue, not advertising revenue, to support the business.[7] Mather and Hansmann believed sports fans would be willing to pay for good reporting and writing, a clean app and no ads.[8] At the time, a few newspapers were trying out paywalls, but the common industry view was that information on the internet needed to be free.[9]

As part of Y Combinator's summer 2016 batch,[10] the site originally launched in Chicago in January 2016,[11] with Jon Greenberg serving as the founding editor, along with Sahadev Sharma (Cubs) and Scott Powers (Blackhawks). Greenberg and Powers previously worked at ESPN Chicago, while Sharma left Baseball Prospectus' Cubs vertical to join the website.

Expansion

[edit]

In October 2016, The Athletic expanded to a second city, Toronto, to focus on Maple Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays coverage. The Athletic hired James Mirtle as editor-in-chief for Toronto.[12] Mirtle had spent over a decade as a sportswriter at The Globe and Mail before joining The Athletic.

A third city, Cleveland, launched in March 2017, with Jason Lloyd as editor-in-chief.[13] The Athletic continued city expansion to Detroit in June 2017 with the hiring of Craig Custance from ESPN as editor-in-chief.[14]

In August 2017, the site launched in the San Francisco-area market with long-time San Jose Mercury News writers Tim Kawakami as editor-in-chief and Marcus Thompson as columnist.[15][16] The Athletic also added national coverage with new writers including baseball veteran Ken Rosenthal, shortly after Fox Sports eliminated its entire writing staff,[17][18] as well as college basketball standout Seth Davis and college football institution Stewart Mandel.[19][20] Mandel led the launch of the national college football section, "The All-American", at the end of August.

The Athletic expanded into Philadelphia, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the rest of Canada in September 2017 bringing local coverage to 15 US and Canadian pro sports markets. The vast majority of expansion was aimed at expanding coverage to underserved hockey fans.[21]

In February 2018, The Athletic announced further expansion into three new cities—New York, Dallas, and Cincinnati—and launched baseball-only coverage in Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona, and Kansas City.[22][23][24] The site also introduced expanded national MLB coverage with the addition of Jayson Stark, Jim Bowden, Eno Sarris, and editor Emma Span.[25]

The site announced full coverage in Denver and Boston starting in April 2018.[26] In Denver, The Athletic hired several reporters from The Denver Post.[27] In Boston, the initial staff consisted of beat writers previously employed at The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the Springfield Republican's web portal MassLive.[28] Adding to college football coverage, The Athletic added dedicated beat writers for major programs like Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee.[29]

In May 2018, the site announced coverage of both domestic and international soccer.[30] In June 2018, The Athletic increased coverage in Los Angeles[31] and expanded into Buffalo, New York, by hiring several reporters who had been bought out from The Buffalo News the same month.[32]

The Athletic continued market expansion in July 2018 with the addition of Atlanta with former The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writers David O'Brien and Jeff Schultz, Baltimore, and Wisconsin. The site also added 19 college football writers to cover most of the major NCAA football programs.[33]

In August 2018, The Athletic launched Fantasy Sports coverage and continued expansion across US markets including Washington, D.C., Carolina, Nashville, Indiana, Miami, and New Orleans.[34] The site also announced expanded NBA reporting with Shams Charania[35] and NFL coverage with Jay Glazer.[36]

The Athletic completed local coverage expansion to all NHL and NFL teams by September 2018 after adding writers in Jacksonville, Houston, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Las Vegas. Memphis was added as the 47th local market covered by The Athletic in October 2018, expanding coverage to all NBA teams.

The Athletic signed three veteran TV journalists in November 2018, including 60 Minutes correspondent Armen Keteyian, in the publication's efforts to produce more video content as a supplement to written coverage.[37]

In May 2019, The Athletic announced an expansion into motorsports coverage featuring veteran journalist Jeff Gluck. While NASCAR is the dominant focus of coverage, The Athletic aims to be a destination for all motorsports fans by including other major events, such as the Indianapolis 500.[38]

In August 2019, The Athletic expanded to the United Kingdom, predominantly covering domestic and international football. The team was initially led by managing director Ed Malyon and editor-in-chief Alex Kay-Jelski.[39][40]

In April 2024, Laura Williamson was announced as the editor-in-chief for UK and Europe. Their stable of writers, includes: Michael Cox and Oliver Kay… David Ornstein and Daniel Taylor.[41][42][43][44][45]

Sale to The New York Times Company

[edit]

The company began exploring a sale to a larger media company in 2021, following continued unprofitability, driven by high expenses and reliance on venture capital funding instead of operational revenue. As of that time, the site had 1.2 million subscribers and $80 million in revenue, having raised $55 million in venture capital funding. Axios entered discussions with The Athletic in March of that year but ultimately declined to make an offer. The New York Times was the leading contender for a potential acquisition as of May, with Vox Media also expressing interest.[46][47] Buyout talks between The Athletic and The New York Times ended in June 2021.[48] On November 2, 2021, reports emerged that sports betting companies DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment, among other companies, were among some of the bidders for the company.[49]

Ultimately, in January 2022, The New York Times Company announced that it would acquire The Athletic for $550 million, in a transaction expected to close in the first quarter of 2022. The Times noted that The Athletic would continue to run independently of the Times, and co-founders Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann would continue to lead the operation.[50]

In June 2023, The Athletic underwent a reorganization, cutting 4% of its staff, reassigning 20 journalists, and discontinuing the use of team-specific beat reporters.[51][52] The following month, The New York Times announced that it would shut down its own sports department in favor of distributing content from The Athletic and its reporters via its platforms. Existing New York Times sports reporters will be reassigned to other departments. The decision was criticized by the New York Times Guild, which alleged the paper was engaging in union busting by "outsourc[ing] union jobs on our sports desk to a non-union Times subsidiary under the preposterous argument that The Times can 'subcontract' its sports coverage to itself."[53][54]

Funding

[edit]

Investors, media executives, and reporters who don't work for the Athletic all express skepticism about the business. But almost no one will share these sentiments publicly. Who wants to be seen badmouthing one of the only places still hiring journalists? Bringing on writers for top dollar and freeing them from chasing clicks is admirable, the doubters say, but it's no way to make money.

Ira Boudway, Bloomberg BusinessWeek[9]

The Athletic has raised a total of $139.5 million over five rounds.[55]

The first major funding was provided by Courtside Ventures, which provided $2.3 million in seed funding in Jan 2017.[56][57] In July 2017, the company raised another $5.4 million in Series A funding also led by Courtside Ventures.[58] In March 2018, the company announced a $20 million third round of funding led by Evolution Media. Mather reported that this money would be invested into expanding coverage to new cities and increasing the number of writers from the then staff of 120.[59] The Athletic raised another $40 million in a Series C funding round in October 2018, co-led by Founders Fund and Bedrock Capital.[60] The money will be used to invest in expanding teams focused on audience, data and editorial teams, subscriptions, podcasts and video.[61]

As of August 2019, The Athletic had 600,000 paying subscribers with an 80% retention rate year-over-year. Most of its subscribers, 60%, follow sports teams in two or more cities.[9] In September 2020, The Athletic announced one million global subscribers, as well as expansion into additional breaking news content formats.[62]

Investigations

[edit]

The Athletic has published multiple investigations regarding workplace misconduct, sexual abuse, and other transgressions in the sports community. In 2018, Athletic journalist Tim Cato published an in-depth report on allegations regarding workplace misconduct within the Dallas Mavericks organization.[63] The report detailed how high-ranking members within the Mavericks organization ignored and tacitly approved of financial misconduct and mental abuse.

In March 2021, The Athletic published an investigation regarding sexual misconduct and abuse at Louisiana State University (LSU). In the report, Brody Miller detailed the rampant sexual misconduct that was present at all levels of the LSU organization, and interviews with former players helped support an investigation conducted by law firm Husch Blackwell.[64]

In September 2021, The Athletic released a report detailing the gross sexual misconduct of association football coach Paul Riley in the NWSL. The report detailed Riley's sexual abuse of several players, namely Sinead Farrelly and Meleana Shim, as well as an unnamed additional player, while coaching at Portland Thorns FC. The report also revealed that the allegations, first reported to the club in 2016, were partially responsible for the decision not to renew his contract in Portland. Riley, however, immediately assumed a new coaching position within the NWSL. The NWSL, and Riley's current team, responded with no comment. Paul Riley denied all allegations.[65] Riley was fired shortly afterward, and the relevant soccer bodies (NWSL, FIFA and the United States Soccer Federation) launched investigations.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "A note to our subscribers from the founders of The Athletic".
  2. ^ Draper, Kevin (23 October 2017). "Why The Athletic Wants to Pillage Newspapers". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  3. ^ Gardner, Steve (July 10, 2023). "New York Times dissolves sports department in favor of coverage from The Athletic". USA TODAY.
  4. ^ "Cities". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  5. ^ Mather, Alex; Hansmann, Adam (January 30, 2018). "Playing the long game". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024. We founded The Athletic with this simple mission: produce smarter coverage for die-hard fans.
  6. ^ Mirtle, James (January 31, 2018). "Why The Athletic has a paywall". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  7. ^ Biasotti, Tony (October 11, 2017). "Fast-growing startup aims to 'replace the sports page'". Columbia Journalism Review.
  8. ^ Draper, Kevin (2017-10-23). "Why The Athletic Wants to Pillage Newspapers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  9. ^ a b c Boudway, Ira (August 20, 2019). "The Sports News Site Haters Love to Dunk on Keeps Signing Up Subscribers". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  10. ^ "The Athletic gives diehard sports fans high-quality content without the ads". Y Combinator. July 11, 2016.
  11. ^ "Welcome Chicago, to The Athletic". The Athletic. January 22, 2016. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  12. ^ @mirtle (23 November 2016). "Excited to announce that I've been hired as editor-in-chief with @TheAthleticTO, a great new startup site in Toronto" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  13. ^ Kleps, Kevin (February 17, 2017). "The Athletic soon will launch a Cleveland site featuring Jason Lloyd". Crain's Cleveland Business. Archived from the original on February 28, 2018.
  14. ^ Shea, Bill (September 24, 2017). "The Athletic: Paywall sports journalism plants its flag in Detroit". Crain's Detroit Business. Archived from the original on September 28, 2017.
  15. ^ "The Athletic's Expansion Features Some Big Names In Sportswriting". UPROXX. August 1, 2017. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  16. ^ "Interview: Tim Kawakami on leaving The Mercury News and joining The Athletic". Bay Area Sports Guy. Archived from the original on April 12, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  17. ^ Rosenthal, Ken (August 23, 2017). "Ken Rosenthal: Why I'm joining The Athletic". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  18. ^ "Fox Sports eliminates digital writing staff in favor of promoting their debate shows". Awful Announcing. June 26, 2017.
  19. ^ "Behind The Athletic's plans to grow local sports news subscriptions". Digiday. August 29, 2017. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  20. ^ "Big Names in Sportswriting Are Joining The Athletic". The Big Lead. July 13, 2017. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  21. ^ "Introducing The Athletic Canada, our national expansion..." The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  22. ^ "The Athletic is expanding to New York City, Dallas, and Cincinnati". Awful Announcing. 2018-02-01. Retrieved February 8, 2018.
  23. ^ Putterman, Alex (February 12, 2018). "The Athletic launches even more local sites, seems to be going all-in on baseball". Awful Announcing.
  24. ^ Schram, Carol (March 8, 2018). "The Athletic Will Keep Growing With The Help Of $20 Million In New Funding". Forbes.com.
  25. ^ Rosenthal, Ken. "Rosenthal: Welcome to our expanded coverage of major league..." The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  26. ^ Putterman, Alex (2018-03-28). "The Athletic launches coverage in Denver, Seattle, and Tampa, making clear it wants to be everywhere". Awful Announcing.
  27. ^ Roberts, Michael (March 27, 2018). "Post Broncos Writer Joins Site She Saw as Trying to Destroy Newspapers". Westword.
  28. ^ Finn, Chad (March 29, 2018). "The Athletic is filling out its Boston roster". Boston.com. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  29. ^ "The All-New All-American". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  30. ^ Quraishi, George (May 17, 2018). "Goooaaaalllll! Announcing The Athletic's soccer coverage". The Athletic.
  31. ^ "The Athletic is expanding once again, with increased coverage in Los Angeles, Dallas, Buffalo". Awful Announcing. June 18, 2018.
  32. ^ Ploetz, Elmer (June 19, 2018). "News, Etc.: Enter The Athletic Buffalo". The Public. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
  33. ^ "The Athletic adds 19 college football writers, expands into Atlanta, Baltimore, and Wisconsin". Awful Announcing. 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  34. ^ Cosentino, Dom (20 August 2018). "Holy Shit, The Athletic Just Swiped A Bunch Of NFL Beat Writers". Deadspin. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  35. ^ "NBA Insider Shams Charania Tells Us Why He's Leaving Yahoo for The Athletic & Stadium". Complex. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  36. ^ Zucker, Joseph. "Jay Glazer Joins The Athletic; Will 'Call Bulls--t in a Way Others Can't'". Bleacher Report. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  37. ^ Ourand, John (November 19, 2018). "The Athletic signs television vets to boost video content". Sports Business Journal. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  38. ^ Gluck, Jeff (May 22, 2019). "Jeff Gluck: We're here to give you stories about motorsports that you won't find elsewhere". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  39. ^ Malyon, Ed (August 5, 2019). "Why The Athletic has a paywall and why you should subscribe". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  40. ^ Kay-Jelski, Alex (August 5, 2019). "What to expect from The Athletic UK". The Athletic. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  41. ^ "Leadership Changes in The Athletic's U.K. Newsroom".
  42. ^ "Michael Cox".
  43. ^ "Oliver Kay".
  44. ^ "David Ornstein".
  45. ^ "Daniel Taylor".
  46. ^ Fischer, Sara (May 25, 2021). "Scoop: New York Times in talks to buy The Athletic". Axios. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
  47. ^ Mullin, Benjamin (May 6, 2021). "The Athletic Halts Merger Talks With Axios, Eyes New York Times". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
  48. ^ Berr, Jonathan. "'New York Times','The Athletic' End Buyout Talks". Forbes. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
  49. ^ Jones, Rory (November 2, 2021). "Report: FanDuel and DraftKings make bids for The Athletic". SportsProMedia.
  50. ^ Toonkel, Jessica (6 January 2022). "NYT To Buy The Athletic for $550 Million". The Information.
  51. ^ "The Athletic, owned by The New York Times, announces layoffs to nearly 4% of newsroom". USA Today. June 12, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  52. ^ Robertson, Katie (2023-06-12). "The Athletic Cuts Nearly 4% of Its Newsroom". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  53. ^ Bruell, Alexandra (July 10, 2023). "New York Times to Close Sports Desk, Rely on the Athletic for Daily Coverage". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on July 10, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  54. ^ Reilly, Liam (2023-07-10). "The New York Times will shut down its sports desk and shift coverage to The Athletic". CNN Business. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  55. ^ Fischer, Sara (2020-01-21). "Exclusive: The Athletic raises $50 million". Axios. Retrieved 2023-03-25.
  56. ^ "The Athletic Raises $2.3M in Seed Funding". FinSMEs. January 9, 2017. Archived from the original on Dec 1, 2022.
  57. ^ Heitner, Darren (January 10, 2017). "Why $2.1 Million Was Invested In A Sports News Subscription Site". Forbes. Archived from the original on Apr 12, 2020. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  58. ^ Schmidt, Christine (July 25, 2017). "The Athletic, that local sports startup with no advertising, raises $5.4 million and scoops up Sports Illustrated's former top editor". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  59. ^ Mullin, Benjamin (2018-03-05). "The Athletic Raises $20 Million to Fund Expansion". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  60. ^ Fischer, Sara (30 October 2018). "Exclusive: The Athletic raises $40 million in new funding round". Axios. Archived from the original on 2019-01-28. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  61. ^ Goldsmith, Jill (Oct 30, 2018). "The Athletic Raises $40M In Fresh Cash". Forbes. Archived from the original on April 12, 2020. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  62. ^ Sherman, Alex (2020-09-09). "The Athletic say it hits 1 million subscribers after surviving sports shutdown". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-09-21.
  63. ^ Cato, Tim. "Everything the Dallas Mavericks investigation revealed about workplace misconduct". The Athletic. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  64. ^ Miller, Brody. "Systemic issues in LSU's reporting of sexual misconduct and abuse: Investigation". The Athletic. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
  65. ^ Linehan, Meg. "'This guy has a pattern': Amid institutional failure, former NWSL players accuse prominent coach of sexual coercion". The Athletic. Retrieved 2021-09-30.
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