The Athletic

Could be, but when he teases like this it's usually for a reason, and dummyrun dummyrun has previously noted there's evidence that Doyle has cribbed ideas about NYCFC from stuff I've written. I personally doubted that, but now I'm wondering.
And to expand on this, last season Doyle was an early adopter of the "Dome ruined NYCFC" theory. Dummy occasionally criticized Doyle for this on Twitter. Then Doyle started writing bits about NYCFC that noted that the results and the eye test disagreed with the advanced stats and how you have to go with results and what you see, but he never mentioned dummyrun even though he was was indirectly arguing with him. Then I wrote a piece taking issue with dummyrun dummyrun and noting that the good advanced stats data from Dome's 1st 6 games or so were so strong that they masked bad data from the rest of the season, and right after that Doyle made the same point, which he never previously made. So he never mentioned DR or me, but it did kind of seem he was aware of both.
 
And to expand on this, last season Doyle was an early adopter of the "Dome ruined NYCFC" theory. Dummy occasionally criticized Doyle for this on Twitter. Then Doyle started writing bits about NYCFC that noted that the results and the eye test disagreed with the advanced stats and how you have to go with results and what you see, but he never mentioned dummyrun even though he was was indirectly arguing with him. Then I wrote a piece taking issue with dummyrun dummyrun and noting that the good advanced stats data from Dome's 1st 6 games or so were so strong that they masked bad data from the rest of the season, and right after that Doyle made the same point, which he never previously made. So he never mentioned DR or me, but it did kind of seem he was aware of both.

Yeah Doyle does his share of lurking and subtweeting but I think Gotham Gator Gotham Gator's right that the NYCFC callout there was just because of the bye week.
 
My subscription would renew tomorrow but I turned off the renewal. I'm not sure if that means today or tomorrow is my last day of access. Here's a final update on their NYCFC coverage. Their last article specific to NYCFC remains the one dated April 4 by Kristian Dwyer. Looking at the NYCFC feed, I see that in between May 8 and June 12 there were not even any general MLS articles that mentioned NYCFC in passing. They wrote plenty of MLS articles during that time, which coincided with a significant improvement in NYCFC results. On June 12 they published 2 articles on the salary info release, both of which mention NYCFC. But there has not been an article about the team's play, or games, or practices, etc since April 4. I'll miss the general MLS coverage, but I'm very comfortable dropping the subscription.
 
So they just launched the Athletic UK, which is going to cover Premier league, EFL, Scottish, women's, and other euro leagues, got a couple of good writers IMO ( Michael Cox, and Rafa Honigstein). I feel this will further Dilute the MLS coverage though, and while i didnt get the athletic for the MLS, this will surely upset those that got it for MLS.

 
So they just launched the Athletic UK, which is going to cover Premier league, EFL, Scottish, women's, and other euro leagues, got a couple of good writers IMO ( Michael Cox, and Rafa Honigstein). I feel this will further Dilute the MLS coverage though, and while i didnt get the athletic for the MLS, this will surely upset those that got it for MLS.

The Phil Hay piece on Bielsa and Leeds was pretty top great https://theathletic.com/1091504/201...numbers-saw-bielsa-stay-and-target-promotion/
 
So they just launched the Athletic UK, which is going to cover Premier league, EFL, Scottish, women's, and other euro leagues, got a couple of good writers IMO ( Michael Cox, and Rafa Honigstein). I feel this will further Dilute the MLS coverage though, and while i didnt get the athletic for the MLS, this will surely upset those that got it for MLS.

I have to think they have decided it is more profitable to chase a piece of a large market that already gets ample coverage, than to offer coverage of niche markets underserved by existing media.

The last thing the world needs is more coverage of MLB, the NFL and the EPL. But apparently it is what the world wants and will pay for.
 
Why would it dilute MLS coverage? (Honest question)

Are they moving any writers from one beat to the other?

well they already got rid of a bunch or writers and the ones that do write just focus on one or two teams i only see bunch of of DC or Minnesota or just articles about MLS as a whole (unless i missed them). If the UK is successful then it will most likely push MLS/USL stuff even further back with less articles about MLS since they may not get the same views/clicks.

EDIT: There are no team ( or two team) specific writer as it was before. The UK stuff is each team with its own writer. so there is much more coverage for the EPL/EFL etc, i guess meant to say MLS may be seen as less important and not many articles will be made about them.
 
For folks who subscribe, how well is the Athletic handling the shut down of almost all sports? As detailed in this thread, I had a subscription which I allowed to lapse last summer because their domestic soccer coverage and especially NYCFC coverage failed to live up to what they promised. They seemed to have improved after I did that but I did not re subscribe. I was planning to reconsider once this season started but that never really happened, and I'm glad I held off. I'm wondering how those who have (mostly) prepaid annual subscriptions think their return value is right now. Gotham Gator Gotham Gator posted about what appears to be an interesting article about Gio Reyna today, but there's only so much of that they can do without the constant stream of new games and contests going on.

Did the Athletic return any money, or at least send any emails about how they planned to justify keeping it when they could not deliver (even if through no fault of their own)?
 
I certainly don't think it's worth subscribing now, but I do think it is worth it once the games get going again.

Right now, they have good coverage of the pandemic and the efforts the leagues are making to reopen, but that's limited stuff. Other than that, they have a lot of feature pieces on players. They also have survey type pieces - Top 10 at each position or 100 Best Moments. These are thoughtfully done, but not terribly compelling.
I used to check it out once a day. Now I am down to once a week. I think they are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances, but it's not going to be compelling reading until there are games.
 
For folks who subscribe, how well is the Athletic handling the shut down of almost all sports? As detailed in this thread, I had a subscription which I allowed to lapse last summer because their domestic soccer coverage and especially NYCFC coverage failed to live up to what they promised. They seemed to have improved after I did that but I did not re subscribe. I was planning to reconsider once this season started but that never really happened, and I'm glad I held off. I'm wondering how those who have (mostly) prepaid annual subscriptions think their return value is right now. Gotham Gator Gotham Gator posted about what appears to be an interesting article about Gio Reyna today, but there's only so much of that they can do without the constant stream of new games and contests going on.

Did the Athletic return any money, or at least send any emails about how they planned to justify keeping it when they could not deliver (even if through no fault of their own)?
I certainly don't think it's worth subscribing now, but I do think it is worth it once the games get going again.

Right now, they have good coverage of the pandemic and the efforts the leagues are making to reopen, but that's limited stuff. Other than that, they have a lot of feature pieces on players. They also have survey type pieces - Top 10 at each position or 100 Best Moments. These are thoughtfully done, but not terribly compelling.
I used to check it out once a day. Now I am down to once a week. I think they are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances, but it's not going to be compelling reading until there are games.
Agreed with @gotham. There were some tactical pieces I liked at least. They did not return money afaik.
 
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I'm not surprised they're not returning $$, and not that disappointed either. I think the best one could hope for would be an automatic extension of all current subscriptions, if not for the entire length of the shutdown, some reasonable gesture like 1 month. But I expect their primary cost driver is salary, and they're probably trying to keep everyone on staff paid so that makes it hard to extend their incoming cash flow expectations. I'd like to think a month would have been doable, but honestly don't know. I mostly asked out of curiosity.
 
I'm not surprised they're not returning $$, and not that disappointed either. I think the best one could hope for would be an automatic extension of all current subscriptions, if not for the entire length of the shutdown, some reasonable gesture like 1 month. But I expect their primary cost driver is salary, and they're probably trying to keep everyone on staff paid so that makes it hard to extend their incoming cash flow expectations. I'd like to think a month would have been doable, but honestly don't know. I mostly asked out of curiosity.

They're still providing lots of content. It's basically a slightly-elevated amount of content for most teams from what they do in the offseason. I follow for Yankees and Rangers news, and they do a fair amount of content. Not nearly as much as normal, but for a period with no games, they're hanging in there. No reason to refund money, they're still providing content.
 
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For folks who subscribe, how well is the Athletic handling the shut down of almost all sports? As detailed in this thread, I had a subscription which I allowed to lapse last summer because their domestic soccer coverage and especially NYCFC coverage failed to live up to what they promised. They seemed to have improved after I did that but I did not re subscribe. I was planning to reconsider once this season started but that never really happened, and I'm glad I held off. I'm wondering how those who have (mostly) prepaid annual subscriptions think their return value is right now. Gotham Gator Gotham Gator posted about what appears to be an interesting article about Gio Reyna today, but there's only so much of that they can do without the constant stream of new games and contests going on.

Did the Athletic return any money, or at least send any emails about how they planned to justify keeping it when they could not deliver (even if through no fault of their own)?

well im ok because im catching up with articles and podcasts ( they got TIFO in there now which i want to check out soon) i flagged but have not had a chance to read ( mostly football strategy articles from NFL/ soccer and other evergreen pieces of championship teams etc). :laughing:

but if not then you have some stuff related to the nfl draft which i thought was good. outside that then meh not really. too many of the "best XI of all time" or other "what if" articles im not interested in. Like what if verlander went to san diego instead, or what if a draft pick was not traded.
 
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well im ok because im catching up with articles and podcasts ( they got TIFO in there now which i want to check out soon) i flagged but have not had a chance to read ( mostly football strategy articles from NFL/ soccer and other evergreen pieces of championship teams etc). :laughing:

but if not then you have some stuff related to the nfl draft which i thought was good. outside that then meh not really. too many of the "best XI of all time" or other "what if" articles im not interested in. Like what if verlander went to san diego instead, or what if a draft pick was not traded.
That's what I figured. They're delivering product as best as they can, but it's not exactly what was promised or expected through no fault of their own. I would not want to be paying for it now. I'd love to hear from someone who cancelled their renewal during the quarantine and find out if the mag offered a deal. And none of this is in a "gotcha" spirit. I'm just oddly curious about this.
 
Signed up for the free trial a few weeks ago because there was an article I wanted to read, basically haven't used it since (I tried, but didn't find much I wanted to read at the time), and noticed this morning my credit card has been charged for the year. No reminders/warnings.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ETA: To their credit, they have issued a refund after a single request.
 
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If anyone needs a free trial message me a have some. I get nothing from the deal they just offered me some free trials to pass out. I do have a subscription which is why I got the free trials.
 
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