Sports Media

[zambonir]

It wasn't that they didn't need to get paid well by the Athletic while they had severances, it was that the Athletic paid them just as well, swimming in VC money while not making a profit. Now they have to actually generate revenue for their new owner.

In theory the site is also under less pressure to attract stand-alone subscribers (like, they would probably lose me if they cut their baseball or college football or hockey coverage too much more, but since it's also part of my NY Times sub probably not).

The soccer domination has been very noticeable. I only follow an MLS team in my Athletic feed but I still see dozens of other stories, much more than any other sport.

[phillychuck]

Rich Hoffman is a serious loss for the Athletic. I subscribed to read/hear him and Bodner, now both are gone.

[zambonir]

Yeah if the Sixers were my main or even Top 3 interest (I go baseball, college football, hockey, though the latter can rise if the team ever does) I'd be torn.

In some ways the site has just never been successful (the quarterly losses cited in the Post story are still significant). It scavenged from newspaper struggles even more than it did from the Fox/ESPN/SI layoffs.

So it took The Athletic, what? 5 years to go through the tech cycle.
1. Claim you are changing the game
2. Invest an unsustainable amount of capital
3. Sell
4. Begin layoffs and change mission to be exactly the same as the orgs you originally claimed weren’t doing things right

— Marc Delucchi ( @maddelucchi ) June 12, 2023

The arc of The Athletic is the most predictable thing. They didn't even try to hide it. Plan was to run big losses on VC $, pillaging the staffs of local newspapers to kill competition, then sell the enterprise and let the next owner reckon with turning it into a real business. https://t.co/Sq40nWRIgc

— Ryan Bernardoni ( @dangercart ) June 12, 2023

[andyb]

New Utah Jazz TV model may be a harbinger of the future. All games on local over-the-air TV and at the same time available on a regional direct-to-consumer streaming platform. Their deal with AT&T Sportsnet was up and the RSN is exiting the business so they had to do something. Focusing on wide distribution including over-the-air seems the right call to me. A bit less money than all direct streaming, but many more viewers to keep the sport popular.

I think we'll see this everywhere. More local over the air with streaming options. Probably more games included in national packages too. Adding Apple TV and Amazon and ESPN+ to the bidding for major sports will create another stream of revenue to replace some of the RSN revenue.

Jazz will have 'entirely new model' for TV deal — perhaps a sign of what's to...

[schillingfan]

Over the air is fine as long as MLB lifts blackouts to everywhere but the local, and I mean local media market. Obviously I can’t get the Phillies now in NEPA when they are on NBC10.

[LoneStarPhan]

When I lived in Shelby County Tennessee, I was blacked out for home games from Atlanta, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Of course, I could not get games for any of these teams over the air or on my cable (except national broadcasts). I certainly never considered going to any of these cities to attend a game in person. As a result of the blackout policy, I never subscribed to MLB TV package until I moved to Texas. I cannot understand why the blackout zones should extend so far as to cost MLB and teams money. In my case, they certainly did.

[andyb]

Blackouts will be dealt with in any future systems. It is figuring out how to generate revenue that approximates what they will get from the current RSN system that is the issue. Direct to streaming will eliminate blackouts though within market (however that is defined but one zip code should really be only in 1 team's market or 2 if a multi-team market).

[zambonir]

If over-the-air became primary you'd probably have a local broadcast too. But you'd also be able to buy a streaming package w/o having a cable subscription to NBC Sports Philly.

The blackouts probably wouldn't be as silly but I doubt they'd go away entirely for tweener areas. Maybe it could just be consumer choice, i.e. if you live in Allentown you might be able buy the Phillies or the Yankees but not both. Then again, if they are charging for both...

[andyb]

Apple TV tonight remember. Phillies and Apple offering a free 2 months if you don't have it.

Watch tonight's Friday Night Baseball matchup with a 2 month free trial of Apple TV+. Redeem now. https://t.co/HQ5I6qZNRg pic.twitter.com/1tmNR6fYl8

— Philadelphia Phillies ( @Phillies ) June 23, 2023

[Ryles]

It's not worth the hassle. If they have your card, you gotta remember to cancel. Too stressful.

[zambonir]

What you do is cancel 30 seconds after you sign up. The two months don't go away.

[zambonir]

The New York Times to Disband Its Sports Department

[andyb]

This was bound to happen. I suppose they can still develop some local or branded columnists for the print page, but there is really no reason to duplicate beat reporters, etc.

I am hoping they restructure the national digital subscriptions. The Athletic has crept up from special offers to $5 to like $8 a month. It is part of the premium subscription which is like $25 a month after the sign up specials. I'd pay $10-$12 long term but not more. This will save money for the Times, but I am wondering about the long term viability of an Athletic subscription that now has fewer local reporters. I am not going to pay $10 for that alone.

[zambonir]

Is there actually going to be a print page? The NYT already barely had beat reporters, just columnists and national guys. The other issue is Times staff is union Athletic staff is not.

I always call the NYT each year to get my 50% discount back. And if that didn't work we'd switch it to my wife. But I don't play Wordle, The Athletic feels less valuable than ever, and Wirecutter is nice enough but not essential, so I could see things changing depending what the site really has to offer over the next year. Gelb is worth a lot IMO but it's not like the Inquirer team is doing a bad job (and I remember when there were not two, but three Phillies writers at The Athletic in Year 1. Now they've also gone from two Sixers writers to 0). Much as I love Stark I don't consider him/Rosenthal/Bowden/Law to be something I'd pay for w/o Gelb and the college football/hockey stuff.

[andyb]

To the extent the print paper survives I am guessing there will be a small print couple of pages. Likely more on Sunday. They are just going to get Ken Rosenthal baseball columns and the Athletic beat reporter stories.

This might be a NY-only thing that is not in national print editions.

I just don't want to call them every year to get a discount. The best thing about cordcutting was not paying dramatically less. It was eliminating the yearly call where you threaten to quit and get bounced around between departments for some special retention deal. Just charge me a fair price and I'll subscribe. I don't do the games and recipes either. And the wirecutter seems mostly free still whenever I search it. So news and sports is what I subscribe for and since it would be my second paper I am not doing it just for the news.

[julio]

So news and sports is what I subscribe for and since it would be my second paper I am not doing it just for the news.

IMHO, the Times has seriously degraded the quality (consistency) of its news coverage. For decades, beginning in college, I read the Times daily (I was a political science/international affairs/economics guy). I used to (sort of) ridicule my older brother, who had settled in Gaithersburg, MD, for preferring the Post, which I considered woefully deficient (except for the comics!). But now? I have a digital subscription to the Post, and not the Times. It's just not reliable any more.

[zambonir]

I still slightly prefer the Times overall but that has very little to do with hard news and politics (for me it's the magazine and Arts and Leisure and food and travel). I also try to limit the $ I give to Amazon (but I still do it).

[andyb]

I live in DC so the Post makes sense for me and it is only $4 a month through Amazon (yes I know that is annoying but the price is right).

I still like the Times coverage. It has a far deeper roster of international reporters and bureaus. I guess my occasional reading is much more on the Opinion side but I do appreciate the news. News with real standards and fact-checkers is unfortunately rare these days.

I also don't have time to read 2 papers. So I won't pay much for the 2nd. I just wish I wasn't getting less for my Athletic subscription even as the price goes up. The ads in the Washington Post app are annoying (and the app crashes more than it should), but if that gets me a $4 monthly deal then I am fine with it. There is just no comparable Times option.

[julio]

I still like the Times coverage. It has a far deeper roster of international reporters and bureaus.

This is fair, and one of the reasons I earlier opted for the Times. I've tended to lean on the Christian Science Monitor and (yeah) Al-Jazeera for third-world stuff... and I pay considerably less attention to that than back in the day, when I was studying or writing about African politics.

I don't use the Washington Post app, but my browser (with ad blocker) and their website. I'm paying for a subscription, so I feel no compunction about blocking ads.

[andyb]

I just got into the app because I would have a 30-minute metro ride every day and I could read it one-handed on an 8-inch tablet. Post-pandemic I work at home though so suppose I could just read off the web.