New Philadelphia Sports Website

zambonir 2023-09-12 12:09:30 UTC #1

Looks like a bunch of people - particularly Sixers, Flyers & Eagles people - decided to quit The Athletic before they could get laid off (in addition to some who were already gone from there). Renee Washington (from TV) on the Phillies.

A big podcast focus too it seems.

andyb 2023-09-12 12:44:12 UTC #2

Looks pretty thin to me and not sure the model can even work these days. And if you are going to be about Philly only, why isn't there a Big 5 section? $80 a year is their intro price also?

Meanwhile, Tyler Kepner migrates over the Athletic and starts with a Philly-Braves article:

I am not sure the Athletic knows what its strategy is. Guessing they have beat reporters for all NFL teams but the coverage for other sports is probably in the 50%-75% range. No beat writer for the Nationals in DC for instance as the last two last less than a year before they were transferred to national coverage. If they have 15 national writers and 20-25 beat writers for baseball the coverage can be very good, but also very inconsistent. Maybe they should have senior writers for each division and then city writers (who might cover more than 1 sport) for each city.

zambonir 2023-09-12 13:03:23 UTC #3

Yeah I personally would have launched with more content but these guys have a pretty loyal audience to bring with them, pre-dating their Athletic gigs as well. (I still remember when @dbodner posted about it starting up here; his current subscribers are getting three months free and/or a full subscription deal here).

I'm not that interested in podcasts or perks but the $80 gets you a free t-shirt and access to discord and no ads. It's more or less the Defector model. I'm sure the Big 5 just wouldn't draw enough readership - could just to Villanova and maybe Temple alone. Even Penn State seems a stretch though obviously they have the sheer numbers.

I'm sure The Athletic's decision to merge everyone into the Times without letting them get Times union membership and benefits has something to do with the exodus too. Question is how many of these guys will The Athletic replace? They can't not have Eagles coverage, they don't seem to intend to do Sixers, their roots are in hockey but the Times may not care if there's a new Flyers writer.

zambonir 2023-09-12 13:10:36 UTC #4

It's certainly great for us as Phillies fans to have Kepner there, much like it has been with Stark. They must have made him a pretty good offer though otherwise he would have had to either quit or stay on the Times side and not cover sports.

andyb 2023-09-12 13:15:41 UTC #5

I am guessing they just moved Kepner over to the Athletic on something similar to his existing contract. As one of their senior writers I am guessing union scales mean less to him. If he can keep writing about what he loves and get paid the same (perhaps with an extension) that is an easy decision for him.

The Athletic seems to be big on national coverage. Price is creeping up too of course. It makes sense if you get the Times, but the Athletic now costs close to what all the NY Times cost.

Now the conversation should probably go back to the Sports media thread....

zambonir 2023-09-12 13:34:19 UTC #6

Yeah I considered just putting this there but that thread is extremely diffuse (including RSNs and TV deals and what not) and this seemed like big enough news on its own, albeit more for the non-Phillies names. Ironically, while I'm not that big a Sixers fan, I only started subscribing to Derek's newsletter after The Athletic laid off Hoffman. And now they are both here. I do like hockey a lot but most of my value from The Athletic comes from college football and baseball. At least for now.

phillychuck 2023-09-12 13:54:33 UTC #7

This is really big news for Sixers and Eagles fans; let's leave it here with its own thread.

I signed up (through Bodner) this morning. Cancelled my Athletic sub.

zambonir 2023-09-12 14:16:01 UTC #8

And Flyers fans too, especially with the BSH Radio people joining too.

And since I started this post they've gotten a bunch of stories up. Okay, more like four or five but I assume it will be pretty active quickly (and daily).

andyb 2023-09-12 14:50:15 UTC #9

I guess I had not noticed that most Philly coverage other than Gelb on the Athletic has been gutted. Who is actually left besides Gelb on the city beat? In DC at least we get half of David Aldridge's time when he is not writing nationally. And 3 of the 4 major sports have beat writers. Looks like the Eagles reporters all wrote Athletic articles on game 1 and then left today. Probably why there is not much up on the PHLY site yet since it was so sudden (maybe giving 2 weeks notice 2 weeks ago?).

Austinfan 2023-09-12 14:53:39 UTC #10

I get the NYT so Athletic is free,

Podcasts have zero value for me, one thing if I commuted to work and needed to kill a half hour on the road, but I read 10x faster than a podcast moves, so they're a huge waste of time.

Problem is when the price hits a certain level, you can just subscribe to a couple analytics sites and get the raw data without a writer's interpretation.

julio 2023-09-12 15:14:37 UTC #11

This is only true for that subset of the fan base that can, or will, do their own analysis…and that’s a relatively small percentage.

zambonir 2023-09-12 15:30:08 UTC #12

The Sixers layoff of Hoffman was a while ago. Derek had left ages ago (much as the Phillies coverage started with three and then two and then one).

The Flyers and Eagles coverage was still the same (compared to recent years if not launch) until today.

And debatable whether any of our own analysis is any good!

Plus I don't read any websites for analytics per se. Some insight into stats, sure. But I read them for reporting and the ability to tell a story.

phillychuck 2023-09-12 16:31:51 UTC #13

The Sixers did not lay off Hoffman, the Athletic did.

zambonir 2023-09-12 18:37:50 UTC #14

yes I was replying to Andy saying the Athletic coverage of all other Philly teams had been gutted.

zambonir 2023-09-12 21:19:33 UTC #15

Didn't realize this was their fourth city from the same parent company. Or this. Their core product seems to be an hour show every day for four different teams, plus a weekly show for the Union. That seems look good value if you want that (but I probably don't).

Kind of ironic because wasn't The Athletic founded on going back to old-time sportswriting in contrast to ESPN with all the multimedia?

phillychuck 2023-09-12 22:15:58 UTC #16

I drive an hour to work and an hour home. I'll love the pods.

I hope. Bo was making noise about doing more politics ... we have plenty of political podcasts that are actually pretty good, I'd really like to keep that away from my football listening. And Melissa Dunn can't be replaced.

Philsmania 2023-09-13 00:02:37 UTC #17

Ironic that things are called "podcasts" even though I-Pods are pretty long gone now.

zambonir 2023-09-13 00:23:39 UTC #18

A long linguistic tradition!

BostonRoss 2023-09-13 03:17:19 UTC #19

Why do they still sell these toys?

julio 2023-09-13 03:54:49 UTC #20

Because people buy them.