The Athletic “gutting” British newspapers

VorZakone

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I'm more interested in how The Athletic thinks they're going to make a profit?
 

Pogue Mahone

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I'm more interested in how The Athletic thinks they're going to make a profit?
One person briefed on The Athletic's plans told BuzzFeed News the US-website is hoping to get 100,000 paid subscribers to fund its ambitious expansion into English football coverage.

Two sources said one subscription-price point put forward would see subscribers pay “about £4 a month… or some sort of package where a reader pays £50 a year”. One source described it as “Netflix-like” pricing.

“They’re banking on a passionate football supporter willing to fork out £4 a month for some scoops about their team, and quality feature and match-day writing,” the source said.

“If you look at the back of the fag packet maths, that would see the website funded by subscribers at about £5 million a year to pay the writers and office costs.”
 

DWelbz19

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That’s quite a list they’ve got there. I don’t know who’s paying subscriptions to read sports journalism, though. Is that something people still do?
 

Pogue Mahone

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It's pay to read, but I don't see people following journalists and paying to read their content. The papers will just replace them with others and life will go on.
Yeah they’re all pretty generic and interchangeable. I’d say only Barney Ronay, Jonathan Liew and Ken Early are good enough writers that I’d choose to read their stuff purely because their name is on the byline.
 

JPRouve

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That’s quite a list they’ve got there. I don’t know who’s paying subscriptions to read sports journalism, though. Is that something people still do?
The Athletic have pretty good articles when it comes to American sports, so it's kind of tempting.
 

Robert

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These football journos overvalue their worth, very self-important at these levels, a lot of ego and desire for recognition. I’m sure the publications will replace them with budding young writers and thrive.

I read so much sports writing but I really do reserve some special hatred for the bulk of their profession. The way they feel entitled to narrate and critique but most ain’t even half qualified to be given such platforms and amplification of their shite opinions.
 

RobbieBerns

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Over here in the US, The Athletic has taken over by storm. I can’t speak on their coverage of other sports, but they more or less snatched up all of the premier NHL hockey journalists. I’m a subscriber and can tell you that the coverage difference is night in and day. Long gone are the boring and personality lacking book report style reporting you normally see in sports journalism.

On the other hand, you can almost always find a heavily discounted subscription deal floating around online, so I do wonder if they’re struggling to hit the subscription numbers they were initially hoping to hit over here.
 
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Kag

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George Caulkin and Daniel Taylor are brilliant journalists.

If you haven’t read Caulkin’s work then give it a go; he’s wonderful. Taylor’s work surrounding sexual abuse has been phenomenal, too.

Some big hitters lost there.
 

Ducklegs

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Nobody is paying to read a football website.

Have these people not heard of Youtube?

Some random dude pays £4, then aggregates all the bullshit together in one 10 minute video and viola, your website is down the shitter inside a year.
 

Cassidy

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It's pay to read, but I don't see people following journalists and paying to read their content. The papers will just replace them with others and life will go on.
Except if they actually produce the type of content which is lacking in traditional sport journalism, I don't expect them to just churn out the same crap
 

Kearnkoff69

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I was gifted a subscription to The Athletic a couple of years ago and now keep it up myself. They've done a similar thing with American sports - hoovering up all the best writers for each of the big sports here (NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA). Their NBA coverage is both broad and incredibly detailed, which is what really sold me on the site. It will be interesting to see how their "Soccer" coverage improves and expands after these acquisitions. I don't know if they'll ever get the readership to justify spending the money on all these journos, but if the quality is anywhere near their output for the NBA and MLB, it should be very good.
 

Tiber

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They signed a lot of big name NFL writers, but I have never been tempted to pay for their content
 

Art Vandelay

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Except if they actually produce the type of content which is lacking in traditional sport journalism, I don't expect them to just churn out the same crap
I'd say the vast majority of people will never know, partly because they don't care who the journalist is and partly because they won't pay a subscription to find out if it's any better.
 

Cassidy

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I'd say the vast majority of people will never know, partly because they don't care who the journalist is and partly because they won't pay a subscription to find out if it's any better.
100,000 people, they don't need the vast majority to be successful.
 

mu4c_20le

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Over here in the US, The Athletic has taken over by storm. I can’t speak on their coverage of other sports, but they more or less snatched up all of the premier NHL hockey journalists. I’m a subscriber and can tell you that the coverage difference is night in and day. Long gone are the boring and personality lacking book report style reporting you normally see in sports journalism.
They also provide lots of stats and depth charts, right? Thats what most people who subscribe to them tend to rave about. I'd imagine that it's invaluable for their fantasy teams.
 

Wumminator

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5th August it launches. Some massive names and podcasts coming as well. Massively high profile journalists and fantastic quality articles.
 

witchtrials

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Yeah they’re all pretty generic and interchangeable. I’d say only Barney Ronay, Jonathan Liew and Ken Early are good enough writers that I’d choose to read their stuff purely because their name is on the byline.
I agree with your general point, but for me seeing Ronay's name makes me far, far less likely to read an article as I know it'll be low on insight and heavy on laboured and supposedly hilarious extended metaphor - his one trick that he uses in every article. I view him less as a journalist than as a sports humourist.
 

giorno

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We should turn the caf into a subscription site

We could offer great content such as The People's Brendan special hour, featuring @SteveJ, the book of kopites, the redcafe transfer muppet ITK worldwide reknown news source for such as the daily express, the Ed Woodward, moron or visionary genius? Special, the Messi vs Ronaldo bloodbath, now with complementary fries!, and such and such...
 

Rado_N

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I really hate the way football writers think they're a part of the story these days.
 

SilentWitness

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The way the world is going that everyone now wants to get paid for what they post. I'm excited for the days when Instagram and twitter cost money to follow certain people. That will be fun.

I'd be interested to know how much money papers like the Telegraph make from subscriptions? I know one person that does and they just send us the text of the articles anyway. I didn't realise for sport people like to read in depth stuff fully. Usually i just take the key points aka he scores a lot of goals, who won, how much will they cost, when are we playing.
 

Damien

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The way the world is going that everyone now wants to get paid for what they post. I'm excited for the days when Instagram and twitter cost money to follow certain people. That will be fun.

I'd be interested to know how much money papers like the Telegraph make from subscriptions? I know one person that does and they just send us the text of the articles anyway. I didn't realise for sport people like to read in depth stuff fully. Usually i just take the key points aka he scores a lot of goals, who won, how much will they cost, when are we playing.
I know there's a United fan who subscribes to The Times and posts the United related articles on twitter (writtenoff_mufc). Don't think he's done it in a while, whether that is because it is the off-season or The Times tracked him down and told him to stop it/cancelled his subscription I'm not sure.
 

Charlie Foley

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Yeah they’re all pretty generic and interchangeable. I’d say only Barney Ronay, Jonathan Liew and Ken Early are good enough writers that I’d choose to read their stuff purely because their name is on the byline.
Daniel Taylor is pretty good but I agree with your general point. Is anyone paying to read Amy Lawrence?

If someone like Michael Cox or Johnathan Wilson do a lot of research and write a book I might buy that. And I like Sid Lowe a lot too.
 

Charlie Foley

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I agree with your general point, but for me seeing Ronay's name makes me far, far less likely to read an article as I know it'll be low on insight and heavy on laboured and supposedly hilarious extended metaphor - his one trick that he uses in every article. I view him less as a journalist than as a sports humourist.
Yeah I’ve gone off Ronay, and I once considered him very good. The breaking point for me actually was the Guardian podcast when we beat Spurs in the semi final and he came across as such a massive bellend I was siding with Barry Glendenning :lol:
 

do.ob

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The way the world is going that everyone now wants to get paid for what they post. I'm excited for the days when Instagram and twitter cost money to follow certain people. That will be fun.

I'd be interested to know how much money papers like the Telegraph make from subscriptions? I know one person that does and they just send us the text of the articles anyway. I didn't realise for sport people like to read in depth stuff fully. Usually i just take the key points aka he scores a lot of goals, who won, how much will they cost, when are we playing.
What? These aren't some guys posting pictures of their lunch. They are professional journalists, writing is their job. Wouldn't you want to get paid for your job?
 

IrishRedDevil

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Big Neil Custis patiently waiting by his phone for a call that will never come. There is definitely going to be a "them and us" divide.