Big round of layoffs at The Athletic

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by TOfan

I was about to post that the Flames coverage has been pretty light recently. With Kent Wilson leaving and Darren Haynes going silent for over two months now, it's hard to justify keeping a subscription.

Kent isn't that big of a loss. His articles were awful.

[Freeway]

I have friends that work for the Athletic and I subscribe, so I want to see it succeed.


But it's NEVER made money. Ever. It's been reliant on VC money to keep it afloat, and so far the subscriber model has depended on continually bringing in new subscribers at a particular rate, which in turn depends on adding new writers/coverage at a particular rate, which to be financially viable depends on adding subscribers at a particular rate, and so on.


It's a snake eating its own tail and it's terrifying to me.

[Journey17]

I struggle with the Athletic. Some teams have great coverage with detailed pieces. The flames recently either have none or useless articles. In comparison, I love their coverage of the chiefs and celtics. If I only followed the flames then I wouldn't pay as not good enough. I do want this model or some model to succeed such that we have top quality written pieces. Frankly, I just don't love listening to podcasts on sports. Articles I can read quickly in between doing tasks at work whereas a podcast I can't really listen to at work.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Journey17

I struggle with the Athletic. Some teams have great coverage with detailed pieces. The flames recently either have none or useless articles. In comparison, I love their coverage of the chiefs and celtics. If I only followed the flames then I wouldn't pay as not good enough. I do want this model or some model to succeed such that we have top quality written pieces. Frankly, I just don't love listening to podcasts on sports. Articles I can read quickly in between doing tasks at work whereas a podcast I can't really listen to at work.

I think the difference is living in Calgary it's already Flames 24/7 with 960 and local coverage while you don't have access to local Chiefs and Celtics daily radio or local media coverage. I use my Athletic subscription more for Raiders and NFL coverage as there's little Flames news to cover that hasn't been discussed on this forum, local media, or 960 multiple times over. When it comes to Flames articles I typically prefer to read general NHL articles from media outside the Calgary market that are more objective seeing most local media covers the team with kid gloves.

[dino7c]

I don't need to pay to hear someone over rate the Oilers

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

When it comes to Flames articles I typically prefer to read general NHL articles from media outside the Calgary market that are more objective seeing most local media covers the team with kid gloves.

Agreed. I read more of other teams articles in general. That being said, I've been pretty happy with some of the more in-depth Flames articles over this season.

[united]

Yeah, agreed with others. I like The Athletic because I'm a fan of many sports and even like reading about other NHL teams, but for the casual Calgarian who is generally just interested in the Flames, The Athletic offers little value right now. I still maintain my subscription and find it good value but the Flames aspect is very disappointing.

Kent Wilson brought the numbers aspect the mainstream media doesn't/can't, but was a poor communicator. Unfortunately his negative attitude also seemed to turn many people off his articles, too. I had high hopes that having better editors at The Athletic would really help him but based on comments here that wasn't the case unfortunately. Too bad as I liked his numbers-based views even if they were pretty basic by today's standards, but I completely understand why people wouldn't filter out the style and lose interest.

I didn't read Darren Haynes as Buzzfeed-style "completely arbitrary number of reasons for topic" articles have always irrationally irritated me, but he was very popular it seemed so that is disappointing to hear he's taking a break but hopefully he gets sorted and returns.

I like the long-form articles we still get but obviously those can't be generated frequently so without Wilson or Haynes providing the daily or weekly stuff the coverage is brutal.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Problem with the subscription model is inability to share.
In today's world many of us find articles on places like CP or Twitter.
There's a huge sharing of content side of things that doesn't work unless everyone is subscribed and that's not gonna happen.