Sports Media

zambonir 2022-09-12 18:58:23 UTC #481

Newspapers and magazines have never been advertising-free and you still had to subscribe to them (or buy them at the store). The main reason websites started charging is because advertising simply doesn't make enough money. The Athletic's ad-free business model was not paid for by subscribers, it was subsidized by their VC funding. They were never profitable (and still aren't). Now that's over (the VC funding).

andyb 2022-09-12 19:08:28 UTC #482

The ads don't bother me per se. I just do remember that when I signed up to yearly plans the lack of ads was one of the big selling points. Now one can see the disappearing beat coverage to easily conclude that they were losing lots of money on that local coverage, so I understand the need for some ads now. I still expect them to add more national coverage and keep dropping the local stuff.

It would have been nice to get a few free months as a thank you. I also have not seen any nice upgrade offers to the NY TImes premium subscriptions that include the Athletic. The first year of that is now only $78 ($1.50 a week). Since I already pay $50 I probably would go for a permanent yearly subscription in that price range (not something that doubles in price after the first year). I already get my local paper so there are limits to what I would pay for a second newspaper.

LegoDoom 2022-09-12 19:31:06 UTC #483

IMO, there is a big difference between ads in print and ads on a website. Also IMO, ads can make some websites almost unreadable. Not knowing how the Athletic is going to implement them, but it's not so easy to scroll past an ad when it is in a fixed position on the screen. I'd also argue that the traditional magazine/newspaper model isn't all that relevant with regards to clicks.

andy has pretty much summed up why I think it's a bad idea. I'm guessing most aren't upset as it's still good content, but the Athletic seems like a far cry of what made it so revered in years past.

andyb 2022-09-12 19:37:33 UTC #484

I just looked and that premium all-access subscription goes from $1.50 a week for the first year to $6.25 a week after that. I think I would pay $100 a year long term and that is it. It is also really, really difficult to find what the subscription costs after the first year on the NY Times website. This is what I hated about cable TV and the trial periods. At least with streaming services there is generally one price and it is widely known and you can cancel at any time.

The NY Times SHOULD want someone like me (and I'd imagine others on the board) to subscribe. They are just making it tough and acting like a cheap bait and switch operation.

andyb 2022-09-12 19:39:15 UTC #485

The first year of the Athletic brought memories of "The National" sports newspaper. It lasted like a second and a half but it was great for a brief period of time.

https://grantland.com/features/the-greatest-paper-ever-died/

zambonir 2022-09-12 19:52:05 UTC #486

I basically call the NY Times every year and threaten to cancel to reset my promotional rate. If that ever stops working my wife and I would switch back and forth. That probably would have worked with the Athletic too.

You can see the changes for the print publications too. Used to be you could subscribe to almost any magazine for $12 a year indefinitely, because they just wanted a huge subscriber base for their ad rates. Now that's all gone and web ads don't replace any of it. A subscription to the likes of Rolling Stone or NY Magazine (print plus digital) costs $75 or more unless you game the system. New Yorker is $90 and that's the 50% discounted price.

I've never found the ads on the NYTimes site to be especially annoying either. But it's a luxury product, they're not doing pop-ups or churn boxes or the worst of the ad server stuff.

Unfortunately while the Athletic is not what it used to be the level of coverage from the daily newspapers it replaced/raided aren't coming back either. Philly is very unique/vibrant in that regard (still technically has two papers, is a non-profit) compared to the hedge fund world in most cities. Arguably Inquirer.com has more robust Phillies coverage than the Athletic these days, with Coffey, Lauber and two general columnists. When The Athletic started they had three Phillies-only writers (though the third, who was all analytics, didn't last long). Gelb does a good job doing very different coverage than the papers (or NBC) does though.

andyb 2022-09-12 20:12:55 UTC #487

Check out your local library. Libby is basically free digital magazine subscriptions. New Yorker, NY Magazine, Economist, Baseball America, among others. Different local libraries I am sure have different subscription levels, but generally I think they have things like the New Yorker because most people have no clue it exists for free. Android/Apple/web access.

https://libbyapp.com/shelf

On the calling every year to get the promotional rate that was the single biggest thing I hated about Comcast. That 30 minutes on hold and getting bounced between departments in order to threaten to cancel was just terrible. Happy to pay as much for streaming services that I can cancel any time.

zambonir 2022-09-12 20:26:26 UTC #488

Yeah I always forget about that, but I like hard copies. Also can you actually log in to the websites via Libby (i.e, to read paywalled web-only New Yorker articles?) or are they just letting you see the digital magazines. I would totally use that for BA!)

The Texture service was pretty good, but Apple News + ruined it. (That said if you don't mind Apple News + it is an incredible deal for what you get, including trade magazines and foreign mags that would cost $100+ a year, and some of the big newspapers).

(Just checked it out, that actually is really handy for stuff I might otherwise get from Apple News +, including those expensive trade and foreign mags, but I don't think it gets you onto the websites for non-magazine content.)

andyb 2022-09-12 20:37:09 UTC #489

No website logins. Just the magazines. The app does put the text in an easily scrollable screen on a tablet, so better than just zooming around the printed page. I had Texture once. Just don't live in the Apple world and Libby is free.

bkeich 2022-09-12 20:43:56 UTC #490

Lol, Ads to compliment the Journalism. Too funny, did you remember to call them and thank them for adding advertisements to compliment the Journalism? Does it feel complete now?

julio 2022-09-12 20:54:19 UTC #491

This. And it isn't just scrolling. Ads typically come from some ad server somewhere, often not the site you're trying to read. You get performance hits (particularly on slow networks). Moreover, if you're trying to view a site that was crafted for desktops/laptops on a smaller screen (e.g., a tablet or a phone), ads can be so intrusive as to really mess up the coherence of the page. (And yes, many sites have "mobile" sites for tablet/phone users, but often the tradeoff there is that you get a far less comprehensive site.]

Then too, many sites are designed to be glitzy, just assuming that the reader has the processing power to handle the glitz. Many of us do... but many do not. I notice significant differences in site performance when I'm traveling (typically hotel wifi, 12-year-old laptop) vs. when I'm at home (fiber optic WAN, high-speed mesh LAN network, 1-year-old Apple Mac Mini with an M1 processor). It's clear that a lot of site designers have pretty much abandoned any effort to support those with less processing power or network speed.

Advertising on web sites doesn't have to be a major problem, but that's a function of intelligent web site design. Like everything else, high-quality web site design costs more than "meh" design; too many journalism sites seem to opt for "meh," rather than make the extra investment to produce an intelligent site.

zambonir 2022-09-12 23:02:19 UTC #493

I actually don't live in the Apple world at all except for an iPad I use specifically for comics and magazines (and all the stuff I have still backed up on Apple Music from the old iPod days). One or two months a year I might spring for Apple News +. Libby gave me the option to send stuff to Kindle but not sure most of the magazines actually do it?

andyb 2022-09-12 23:09:44 UTC #494

I have sent to Kindle for a library book but not for the magazines. I think you lose all the photo layout when you do that and the Libby app text button is fine for reading articles. Biggest problem is it takes too long to read the New Yorker and the Economist every week...

julio 2022-09-13 00:34:44 UTC #495

Heh. I know what you mean. I don’t read the Economist…but sub in Science, and it’s much the same thing.

OTOH, my wife is a collage artist, and _Science _ covers (and some ads) provide a steady stream of interesting patterns and colors for her. So even when I consider giving up the subscription, because I’m always behind, we decide to continue, because of the good paper and inks.

zambonir 2022-09-13 01:14:54 UTC #496

I threw out probably as many as 50 New Yorkers at some point in the pandemic, some of which I'd had since - no jokes - before the 2016 election. Fortunately many of those issues were dated, and and I didn't want to read half the articles that were written during the administration.

Now I tend to run about 5-6 issues behind (three untouched, three half-read). But i read books a lot more than I did before the pandemic.

I will say that Sports Illustrated has managed to remain a decent magazine, despite questionable ownership and a largely inessential website. But they kept just enough good writers, and do one or two longer/deeper things per month.

schillingfan 2022-09-16 01:54:05 UTC #497

So it took me some internet searching to find the Thursday night NFL game on Amazon. I feel live programs like sports don’t belong on streaming. I like having a live guide to see what’s on. I had to search “NfL television schedule” to find it. At least the Phillies have a “broadcast schedule” tab on their site. I finally find it on sports watch media.com. FWIW.

LoneStarPhan 2022-09-16 02:09:24 UTC #498

Hard for us old timers to get use to streaming, although I do it quite a lot. One difference, as schillingfan alluded to, is I don't go to streaming for live programing. I go for movies or series that are there available as I want something to view. I still think of sports as being on broadcast TV where I can view a guide and see what is on and when. For me, if Thursday NFL is going streaming, I probably will not see much NFL on Thursdays. In fact, I pretty much forgot about it being on tonight.

schillingfan 2022-09-16 03:11:43 UTC #499

I forgot too. After the Phillies game I looked at the live guide and didn’t see the game. Then I realized it was Thursday night and had to play detective to find the damn game, which is very good BTW. Still on.

zambonir 2022-09-16 06:56:14 UTC #500

Cable or streaming I never use the live guide. I just Google it or check ESPN or the league page. My problem tonight would have been more that I don't actually have Amazon Prime Video. If memory serves those games used to be on both Amazon and NFLN and now Amazon has exclusive?

andyb 2022-09-21 14:56:09 UTC #501

As I kind of expected, the whole Bally sports network direct streaming idea seems to be collapsing. The issue is really not whether some superfans will pay $20-$30 a month for their local teams. It is really whether enough of them will (compared to the smaller amount of money they used to get from EVERY cable household).

If the leagues buy these rights back it would clear the way to have national in-market rights to sports teams. Of course those rights will also be expensive, especially if one needs to buy them for each sport.

At some point somebody needs a better idea. Regional bundles probably do make sense (all 3 non football sports in your market), but they can't be too expensive and lose sight of the fact that more viewers (i.e. volume) helps these sports teams sell tickets and jerseys and grow fans.