The Athletic
- Thread starter Fantazma
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The Athletic Searches Far and Wide for New Subscribers as It Seeks a Sale
The sports-media startup has laid off staff, scrapped a documentary unit and canceled some podcasts while seeking new avenues of growth.
www.bloomberg.com
I'm looking at the NYCFC feed at the Athletic right now. We're in MLS Cup, having just won 3 playoff games.
The most recent article discussing NYCFC's play on the field is, generously, a July 21 article about James Sands in the Gold Cup. Before that NYCFC was discussed in a July 6 article about the Supporters Shield race, and a big article in May about the Talles Magno signing. But not one single article all year specifically about NYCFC's on-field performance for good or bad.
The Athletic has solid if sporadic coverage of the league in a big picture sort of way, but has effectively no regular coverage of the actual sporting part of it. They do a slightly better job for a few teams. Portland had an article on Nov 20 about their improved form and one on Mabiala on Dec 3. Seattle had 2 in the same time frame. Atlanta already has a preview of 2022 up. But week to week coverage of the league as a sporting entity does not exist. They don't even do a weekly or monthly regular roundup of the league as a whole.
I have very much enjoyed the Michigan football coverage, but I think I will be canceling my annual subscription to The Athletic for the second time.
The most recent article discussing NYCFC's play on the field is, generously, a July 21 article about James Sands in the Gold Cup. Before that NYCFC was discussed in a July 6 article about the Supporters Shield race, and a big article in May about the Talles Magno signing. But not one single article all year specifically about NYCFC's on-field performance for good or bad.
The Athletic has solid if sporadic coverage of the league in a big picture sort of way, but has effectively no regular coverage of the actual sporting part of it. They do a slightly better job for a few teams. Portland had an article on Nov 20 about their improved form and one on Mabiala on Dec 3. Seattle had 2 in the same time frame. Atlanta already has a preview of 2022 up. But week to week coverage of the league as a sporting entity does not exist. They don't even do a weekly or monthly regular roundup of the league as a whole.
I have very much enjoyed the Michigan football coverage, but I think I will be canceling my annual subscription to The Athletic for the second time.
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They did do a short summary of the Philly playoff game that for some reason doesn’t come up in the NYCFC feed. You can find it in the MLS feed. It mainly turned out to be a vehicle for the NYCFC haters to crawl out from under their rocks and into the comments section.
Still, there is no arguing that coverage of our Club is virtually non-existent, and that’s continued after they hired one of our forum members as a reporter.
Still, there is no arguing that coverage of our Club is virtually non-existent, and that’s continued after they hired one of our forum members as a reporter.
Thanks. They need to fix the feed, obviously. So that's the one game report for the season. I expect they will do something for MLS Cup, maybe even both a before and an after story but who knows. I'm also not expecting John to cover NYCFC or even MLS much. He seems to have been hired to do general soccer analytics stuff and my guess is it will have the same focus as their soccer coverage generally, which mostly is Europe.
FWIW, Athletic going to the Grey Lady.
Also, for anyone else who is a data person I generally hate newsletters, but I learned of this from my daily Chartr newsletter. Love getting a tiny bit of random data news every day.
Also, for anyone else who is a data person I generally hate newsletters, but I learned of this from my daily Chartr newsletter. Love getting a tiny bit of random data news every day.
The Athletic recently raised the annual subscription price from $60 to $72. My sub renews on May 21. It was borderline worth it to me at $60, so today I hit the unsub button. They said please don't. I said I'm sure.
Then they offered me a renewal for $19.92 for the whole year.
Then they offered me a renewal for $19.92 for the whole year.
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I've heard from different places that the Athletic has really diminished itself recently. It was bought by a hedge fund and then sold to NYT. Through those investments it has gotten away from its early roots of high quality sports journalism.
Have you gotten this same impression, or is that just bluster?
I think it depends on what sport you looking for. Certain sports its still good stuff, the premier league stuff/ NFL / baseball ( i follow basketball but dont really read much of their articles, hockey i dont know i dont really follow it).
i think its still good but the price might be getting steep. I am still on that student discount but its going to run out soon. There are alot more podcasts now ( even before the NYT sale).
MLS coverage is good but is not to the level of Premier league stuff/ NFL. MLS coverage generally speaking its not team based at all, more league based with certain pieces focused on a team from time to time.
Hard to say. My issue is I really only care about MLS, and then to lesser extents CFB and NFL. I heavily relied on the Michigan FB coverage last fall when Michigan won the Big Ten because I came to that fandom and interest in CFB only recently. I thought it was very strong. As others noted MLS coverage is mostly about the league and even then only sporadic. I also have never been impressed with the USMSNT coverage.
But to your specific question, I have not noticed things getting worse in any of these areas.
Not sure if you have made it to MGoBlog yet, but that is a good resource for Michigan coverage (ad supported).
Yes, thanks. They're good. Any team driven site can tend to be a bit suspect as to impartiality (which sometimes manifests with negative coverage), but MGoBlue is reasonably even. Reading The Athletic was a good check for me wrt what MGB was saying.
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