Well, there’s the cashout that the Athletic has been working towards for 3-4 years now. I think they really hoped to find a buyer back in those early days when they super-staffed up with a legion of national writers of some renown. They pushed heavily discounted subs to get their subscription total numbers up too (and they still continue to do that.)
I think they got a pretty decent buyout figure in the end from the Times. Probably nowhere near what The Athletic was hoping for back in 2018 or so, but very fair for what it actually is now.
They lost $95 million across 2019 and 2020 alone. It had $140m in at least one round of funding for startup capital, and the price tag as of the end of 2020 was supposed to be about $750m.
I think they probably returned a very mild profit on initial investment, but probably not much more than that.
The impression from the story that broke this acquisition is that the Times is basically buying them for their subscriber list. In 2021 both Axios and Vox media kicked the tires on buying The Athletic, and neither saw a way to make it operationally profitable.
I’d unsubscribed earlier this year; they’d already begun cutting good experienced beat writers with in-depth knowledge in favor of cheaper inexperienced writers with paper-thin depth. Probably part of a final push to get operating costs lower in preparation for a buyout.
I still have my sub, mostly because the beat writer they assigned to the Cardinals last year (Katie Woo) is clearly going to be an absolute superstar in sports media, and among a crowded field of folks covering the Redbirds, she’s so far and away the best in the room that it almost isn’t fair to some of the graybeards who cover that team.
And I have a feeling once she realizes how much she’s actually worth, she’s going to end up at ESPN, or the Times (either the NYT, or the LA Times), or the Washington Post.
I subbed for one year on whatever cheap deal. Was all right, but ultimately the real interesting stuff was increasingly buried in a desert of mailed-in wire stories.
I have maintained a sub. Most recently found a $10 subscription for the year via Googling some promo links. I wonder if this will be rolled into NY Times subs, or kept independent?
Edit. If anyone wants it, the link still seems to work. It’s in CAD currency, but you can switch to USD at checkout.
This is probably the motivation that I need to finally unsubscribe, as the NYT gets nothing from me. The Athletic has been sitting in the grey zone of “probably not worth keeping, but also don’t feel like I have to cancel it right this instant” for quite a while now. Baseball continuing to do their best to become irrelevant has contributed quite a bit to that, since they have some good national (Keith Law) and local names there. As overall resources have declined they’ve also kept/increased resources on the most popular sports, which I completely understand as a business proposition but also makes it less valuable to me (since their best NFL content is probably the freely available podcast, and NCAAF may as well not exist for all I care).
It was an interesting attempt and I think most who enjoy good sports coverage would have been happier if it worked out a little more effectively, but as long as the business model involves actually paying the content creators, it doesn’t seem like it works much better here than as part of a legacy newspaper.
Holy cow. That’s huge for them. Glad to see that model worked out. You could tell they were on to something early on once they started poaching all the best beat reporters. Good for them.
Yeah, I’m pretty pissed. I have subscribed for several years in part because it is ad free. Problem is, my subscription just auto-renewed in August and they do not do partial refunds. Essentially, they changed the product (considerably, in my view) and yet leave no option for those who want out.
It’s also very curious that this announcement comes just after the start of the NFL season. I’d imagine they seek a spike in subscribers leading up to the start of the biggest sport in this nation, and so they wait until just after opening weekend to tell subscribers.
Yeah, it’s shitty. I haven’t looked at their TOS yet. My guess is there’s something in there they make you click on where you agreed to this sort of thing. Still pretty tacky, IMO.
I’m in a similar boat, though I only have about 4 months of my sub left. I cancelled today, though, and let them know why I wouldn’t re-up.
Absolutely timed for when they are most read. It’s definitely super trash to just starting to serve standard annoying ads like this. I was expecting the NYT to ruin it by cutting writers, not driving off the whole subscriber base like this.
I sent a message through the site asking for a pro-rated refund since they changed their product. This was the reply.
Thanks for reaching out about the new advertisement experience at The Athletic. We understand your concern and value your feedback. Rest assured that the integration of advertising has no impact on our journalism. The in-depth stories, breaking sports news, lively podcasts, and insider knowledge you’ve come to love and rely on isn’t going anywhere.
We are committed to a best-in-class experience with high-quality advertising placements that should feel seamless and will allow us to invest further in world-class sports journalism. We are collaborating with premium brands to develop bespoke experiences that excite sports fans as they connect with the players, teams and leagues they love.
I am unable to issue a refund for your previous purchase, but you can manage your account details at any time on [Your Account] page. I apologize for any inconvenience this causes.
Please be sure that nothing about The Athletic’s content, product, or mission has changed, and the journalism you’ve come to love and rely on will be unaffected. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything else at all that we can do to help!
This is an unsurprising reply, although it’s fairly well written. What I hate is the phrase ‘new advertisement experience.’ Don’t create a euphemism to make this more palatable. Just say what it is. “We need to sell ads to meet the profitability demands of our new owners.”
Oh, and what the fuck is a ‘bespoke experience’? Truly, I have no idea.
My sub comes up in December, I cancelled and in the feedback box I let them know I was introducing my New Cancellation Experience.
That said, last year I found an annual sub deal for $10. The content is still good enough to warrant that cost even w/ ads. So I may re-up if I find a similar promo.
