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Washington Post article on the future of The Athletic


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2 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

The Internet was bound to disrupt journalism particularly sports journalism which for example TBD crowd sources with free contributors. 

 

hobbyists will do for it for free and have access to most all the same video clips, tweets and stats. 
 

to get paid, one needs to do a much better job (be it entertaining, analytical or other) than the hacks of yore! 

I smell a poll coming—how much would you pay for continued access to TBD?:flirt:

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I joined last spring, my renewal will be coming soon.  IF as the article states the cost is $60 a year, I'll renew, but over $75 or so, then not so sure it's worth it for me.  It's a much better value if you're looking for articles on other things besides just the Bills.  I will say the articles are always well written and well detailed. 

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18 minutes ago, NoHuddleKelly12 said:

I smell a poll coming—how much would you pay for continued access to TBD?:flirt:


I’d chip in for anything operational, however the value is the ability for anyone to ‘contribute’ without barriers (except some minor expectation of civility) 

 

Readers can decide.

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13 minutes ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:


I’d chip in for anything operational, however the value is the ability for anyone to ‘contribute’ without barriers (except some minor expectation of civility) 

 

Readers can decide.

FWIW, I would too, for better or worse this site/community has become a part of my daily routine, and gives me more Bills content and faster than basically anything else. 

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47 minutes ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

I joined last spring, my renewal will be coming soon.  IF as the article states the cost is $60 a year, I'll renew, but over $75 or so, then not so sure it's worth it for me.  It's a much better value if you're looking for articles on other things besides just the Bills.  I will say the articles are always well written and well detailed. 

Just FYI, when it comes time to renew you can send yourself a gift subscription that will save you 15-20% on the price of a 1 year subscription. It’s not as good a deal as what new subscribers can get, but it’s still better than paying full price.

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3 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

I think one particular additional point is opinion pieces are passé. I think the average sports news consumer is more educated than ever and is looking for knowledge and analysis more than more opinions. 

 

Particularly when the opinions are nothing more than regurgitated takes you've heard over and over!

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1 hour ago, Rubes said:

It's pretty fascinating that I haven't heard much negative about The Athletic since it started. I'm not a subscriber so I don't know, but I find that interesting.

 

Same here.  I do not subscribe, but I can't recall anything negative being said about it since it started.

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4 hours ago, blacklabel said:

Hmm... they started out at $8 a month for a subscription and I don't think that lasted very long before they bumped it up to $11. The content is pretty good. Sometimes there's some filler, but guys like Joe B and Fairburn are on there, and Timmy Graham who I think is a solid writer that likes to troll sometimes. I dunno if I'd pay more than $11 a month though, so if they're looking for more revenue, hopefully it doesn't come in the form of charging subscribers more.

Where else but the subscribers would money come from? 

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32 minutes ago, QCity said:

 

Ads.

If you have enough subscribers you can sell ad space, kind of a chicken or the egg deal, it’s a tough business model to keep healthy, being most folk don’t like to pay for media content nowadays, 

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I subscribed to the Atlantic last fall, based on the orgasmic comments from subscribers here on TBD. I  got it at a discount. Frankly, it's not worth it, even at the discounted price. I called today to cancel my subscription. 

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23 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

If you have enough subscribers you can sell ad space, kind of a chicken or the egg deal, it’s a tough business model to keep healthy, being most folk don’t like to pay for media content nowadays, 

 

Traffic is not the issue, you can sell ads on any site regardless of the amount of pageviews it gets, and certainly not an issue for one that has ~1M subscribers. The problem is that people that pay for a subscription do not want to see ads. One approach is to sell ads on free content that paying customers would be blocked from viewing.

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7 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

Where else but the subscribers would money come from? 

 

Uh... the bank? That monster that'll give you about tree fiddy? I know where you're coming from but if they would wanna increase the price for a subscription they'd have to offer some new features.

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Some thoughts....

 

im not an athletic subscriber

 

 

 

1. The issue in newspapers in general has changed. It’s not just the sports part of this.  Sports being paid for because it’s a source of dports in a market. Network news has marginalized it so news paper has become source locally.

 

2. With some bscription droos and thus ad revenue drops, a newspaper has to cut things.  This has actually been difficult on veteran reporters who can easily be rep,aced by a cheaper 25 yr old.  In reporting there isn’t  much needed in experience levrl or experiences gives you more in depth understanding of how things work like in investigative journalism.

 

3. I don’t know is athletic does this..by having reporters assigned to teams you might not have as much travel expenses.  

 

4. Still the big issue is how safe are established reporters with 15-25 yrs experience.  Does athletic in a few years lay them off for new faces who cost less.

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