dll2000 Posted June 13, 2023 Share Posted June 13, 2023 ... And are doing a bunch of layoffs. First round hit today. Bummer for those beat writers getting laid off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nagahide13 Posted June 13, 2023 Share Posted June 13, 2023 Thumbs down. Last bastion of sports journalism. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naptownskinsfan Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Could tell this was coming from a mile away with how they continued to jump their subscription prices year to year. Eliminating beats is going to cost them subscriptions though. Instead of doubling down on national stuff, they really should focus on the local beats. Even if they are “licensing” it from another company or something. Most of these guys they are laying off are basically going to have to go into business for themselves at this point if they want to stay on the beat. Most newspapers nowadays put brand new journalists fresh out of school on payroll to keep costs down. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE DUKE Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Why buy The Athletic if you are going to gut what makes The Athletic worth something? This isn't 1950 where people are just going to keep buying something because of brand recognition. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kramxel Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Might be time to unsub. It was too good to survive, quality jornalists, quality podcasts.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET80 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Oh this sucks. I love The Athletic for it’s actual journalism and quality content. I was happy to pay for it. I’ll have to see if my favorite guys stick around, but I’m leaning towards canceling. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dll2000 Posted June 14, 2023 Author Share Posted June 14, 2023 4 hours ago, THE DUKE said: Why buy The Athletic if you are going to gut what makes The Athletic worth something? This isn't 1950 where people are just going to keep buying something because of brand recognition. Well, you can't pay 100s of salaries when you don't have income to pay them. That model is not sustainable. But the whole point is local news and then being able to see other cities local news. National people often screw things up. We know there is a second team guy on our team that is pretty good. That could be a starter somewhere else. We know because we follow practice as best we can and training camp, etc. We know this starter on our team is overrated for same reason. National guys are watching highlights and reading box scores and relying on PFF. But any fan can do that for themselves really. That isn't adding value. The local beat guy, if he is any good, also knows this things. That is the difference. Now I know this stuff for Bears, but A) I still want to hear someone else say it and discuss it. But B) I don't know it for, say the Giants. I want to hear from a guy who watches their practices, who watches training camp. Who rewatches their games after Sunday on Gamepass. So if I am in charge of ATH, maybe I have just 1 LOCAL guy covering a small market team and 2 or 3 guys for a big market. I double up guys on less popular sports and pay them less because revenue is less, but you have to keep it all local or it is worthless. Or maybe we go to more of a commission model than a salary. You make more, you get more eyeballs, you earn more. You get less you earn less, too little you are out the door. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minutemancl Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Ideally, all the beat writers for The Athletic form a Defector-esque employee-owned company doing what they have been doing. The blueprint is there now, and Defector is both very good and successful. That's a little too big of a jump though for 20 layoffs, probably. People are generally resistant to big immediate change. In a world of either absolute garbage written sports media, or somewhat ok written sports media that's locked behind a paywall that isn't worth it, The Athletic is really the only paywalled sports media that I can 100% say is worth it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ty21 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Boo. I don’t subscribe to any membership news pages, but the athletic articles I read were always considerably better than I’ve seen elsewhere. This doesn’t affect me much for that reason but I hope it doesn’t change too much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trojan Posted June 15, 2023 Share Posted June 15, 2023 NYT is historically absolute trash to acquisitions if I remember right and about went outta business during the recession. They probably see The Athletics subscriber numbers and just want to purchase those and will long term mishandle the acquisition if past is anything to go off of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VonKarman Posted June 15, 2023 Share Posted June 15, 2023 On 6/14/2023 at 12:59 PM, naptownskinsfan said: Could tell this was coming from a mile away with how they continued to jump their subscription prices year to year. Eliminating beats is going to cost them subscriptions though. Instead of doubling down on national stuff, they really should focus on the local beats. Even if they are “licensing” it from another company or something. Most of these guys they are laying off are basically going to have to go into business for themselves at this point if they want to stay on the beat. Most newspapers nowadays put brand new journalists fresh out of school on payroll to keep costs down. You can easily get promos for 1 dollar/month for 6 months/1 year. You just have to unsub once the promo is over and wait a week till they send you the same promo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slappy Mc Posted June 15, 2023 Share Posted June 15, 2023 NFL News, this is not. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NudeTayne Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 3 hours ago, Slappy Mc said: NFL News, this is not. Agreed. But also, man, there's really not much NFL to talk about in this dead zone time of year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenos Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 On 6/14/2023 at 7:05 AM, ET80 said: Oh this sucks. I love The Athletic for it’s actual journalism and quality content. I was happy to pay for it. I’ll have to see if my favorite guys stick around, but I’m leaning towards canceling. They’re keeping anything NFL related from what I hear. But anything that doesn’t generate as much interest is unfortunately fair game to be let go. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NVRamsFan Posted June 18, 2023 Share Posted June 18, 2023 Terrible news it was the only place to get really good sports journalism. Jourdan is the best Rams writer IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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