Sports Media

andyb 2018-02-13 16:40:38 UTC #1

Let's do this topic correctly this time.

More on the Athletic expansion. Jayson Stark on April 1st and Eno Sarris full time on analytics.

andyb 2018-02-13 17:20:16 UTC #2

2018 MLB.com pricing. $115.99 for everything. $89.99 for single team. Over 2 years these are only $6/$5 increases, so fairly reasonable.

Most OTT streaming services are also carrying regional sports channels. With the exception of MASN in DC and Baltimore of course.

Lawman 2018-02-13 17:47:46 UTC #3

Radio service, unless it went up, is $20 for the season. You get radio feeds of every single team and access to one game/night of MLB's choosing to watch.

DurhamBull 2018-02-13 18:11:41 UTC #4

It's still $20. Mine just renewed.

bkeich 2018-02-13 18:11:51 UTC #5

LOL, you guys just saved me $116. I had forgotten to cancel it after being a charter member (I joined the first year MLB.TV existed on the internet). I have moved back to the area (Jim Thorpe) and there is no real reason for me to continue with the service.

If you do live out of the area and are a die hard Phillies Fan (how could you not be and read this).then MLB TV is a great product. For about $0.80 per game you get to watch all of them (except a few blackouts depending on where you are and Saturday afternoons are often not available). I am not sure i go into this season particularly optimistic as I fear we have a young core of frankly kinda mediocre players, but we will see. Either way it is hard to argue with 30 cents an hour of entertainment.

zambonir 2018-02-13 18:52:51 UTC #6

Still really impressed by the Athletic. They hired some good people in NY too.

andyb 2018-02-13 19:11:21 UTC #7

They claim to be up to 20 teams covered in MLB with local reporters. They do have some holes (DC, Boston) but I imagine they will be filled in a few months. This was the obvious landing spot for Stark. Hopefully they can make the subscriber model work. It is a more local angle that ESPN takes, especially after the ESPN cities concept did not take off.

I would actually not be opposed to them having advertising on the site as long as it is limited and non-intrusive. Their model requires relatively expensive salaries and it probably falls apart if the subscriber fees ever grow.

zambonir 2018-02-13 19:40:40 UTC #8

The advertising just wouldn't add much to their bottom line is all. Sponsoring individual stories or city/team pages might work. But display ads, or opting into the online advertising eco system, would just be clutter.

I like that it has no video, though I imagine they will have to give in on that and do podcasts or shows eventually.

For me it's the combination of national and local that was worth the $. If your entry point is college sports or hockey it doesn't feel local at all (though they do cover hockey locally).

And also the combination of young and old. Hiring Stark and Deadspin's Lindsey Adler on the same day is not something a lot of places would do. And obviously they are fully interested in analytics but also willing to publish someone people like Bowden and Gammons.

andyb 2018-03-01 20:18:48 UTC #9

The Athletic, Atlantic, and ABC are the three leading suitors for Nate Silver's 538.com

Not sure it is the best fit for the Athletic, especially as they may be bleeding cash to sign all these local reporters. Another article in the WSJ noted that the site has losses of $6 million and revenues of $3 million. Does not surprise me since most of their political traffic disappears in an off year.

zambonir 2018-03-01 21:52:54 UTC #10

I think that would be mission creep for them. Obviously Silver has the sports background and they do sports, but I wouldn't think the politics and entertainment coverage would bring in many new subscribers, or get current ones spending more time on the site.

But maybe it wouldn't even be part of the Athletic per se.

julio 2018-03-11 22:23:51 UTC #11

Baseball America appears to have undergone a "redesign" or some such?

Matt Eddy's Minor League Transactions blog is still there (although the postings are merged into a larger "stories" category, which means entries other than the current one won't be easy to access), but the detail that used to be presented for minor leaguers - dates of original signing, assignments to various leagues, etc. - is missing, at least for now. I've posted an inquiry at BA; we'll see what they say.

I'm not at all sure I would continue to subscribe if the detailed data I've been using is deemed no longer relevant.

andyb 2018-03-11 22:41:21 UTC #12

It looks like most of the content is still there. Just buried behind a home page with very little on it. Their financial model is likely in trouble.

julio 2018-03-11 22:47:01 UTC #13

Much of the content is still there - but I specifically used the site to identify when minor leaguers - including international signees - were actually signed. The signing dates affect things like Rule 5 eligibility, minor league free agency. The transactions history of each minor league player was listed on that player's page. It's gone now.

That's not a trivial loss for me - that data is why I chose to subscribe. If it stays gone, I'll likely cancel my subscription - and tell them explicitly why I'm cancelling. They need to hear from their customers when/if they choose to alter/diminish the product.

andyb 2018-03-11 22:52:54 UTC #14

Definitely hear you and sometimes the MILB site is lacking or not updated. BA stopped making sense for me when the price became more than ESPN and the Athletic (or something else) combined.

zambonir 2018-04-01 17:28:48 UTC #15

Stark returns (not much here, the standard Athletic intro column but a bit longer. Nice to have him back. Always felt like a bonus to have someone from Philly, and my youth, in a prominent national role).

schooldoc 2018-04-02 02:31:42 UTC #16

I'm finding that some of the best writing in Philly sports these days (in my opinion, anyway) is not at Philly.com. Outlets like The Athletic and Phillyvoice seem to give the writers a bit more autonomy and opportunity to get more in-depth. So these outlets are the best of both worlds, in that the reporters get the access of the traditional newspaper beats but can expand upon things like the bloggers can.

The Athletic in particular is really adding some national reporter chops to what they're offering locally. I'm enjoying it so far.

zambonir 2018-04-02 03:23:17 UTC #17

I still really like David Murphy but I probably wouldn't pay for Philly.com if I had to (my family gets home delivery). Problem is, aside from the people with blogging and analytics background, nearly everyone who writes or wrote for the new outlets were first trained at the dying newspapers. Zolecki, Salisbury, Ryan Lawrence (who is gone from PhillyVoice, I don't think they are covering sports anymore?). Montemurro. Paul Hagen. Even Stark long ago of course. And now Matt Gelb, who Philly.com has yet to replace (they advertised the job, but if it hasn't been filled by now...) But his work is definitely better at the Athletic than it was there.Of course he's also writing twice as much, basically being both a columnist and a beat writer on some days.

And the Athletic has replaced SI and more than a little bit of ESPN.com and Fox Sports.com even more definitively. The paywall model is definitely a good thing (as Stark's column talks about) but all the $ The Athletic is using to hire all these writers and add sites is coming from VC funding, not sustainable revenue. It could be the future or it could be the next Bleacher Report, bought by an old media company and changed or scaled back. We shall see, but what won't happen for a while anyway.

andyb 2018-04-02 21:59:43 UTC #18

A day late, but Baseball Reference finally makes the transition into the online video age:

julio 2018-04-02 22:21:27 UTC #19

The "A day late" line would perhaps be more effective if Youtube didn't show the video posting date as March 28th...

andyb 2018-04-03 15:29:46 UTC #20

Looks like the Athletic is rolling out Boston this week. DC/Baltimore area is their one remaining major hole. They now have 25 of 30 MLB teams.