The Athletic sells to the New York Times

mauf

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/business/media/the-athletic-layoffs.html

Layoffs and a coverage switch to more general vs. local.... so basically going from what made the Athletic unique to "wanna pay for the same thing most places have for free?"
I don’t think it’s a catastrophe if a national publication doesn’t have beat reporters covering, say, the Kansas City Royals or the Nashville Predators.

I thought this WaPo article did a better job laying out the reasons for the change. Of course more coverage is always better from a reader’s perspective, but it seems like they are taking a balanced approach.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/12/athletic-layoffs-new-york-times/
 

TheWizard

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Oct 31, 2013
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A few months back I went to cancel my reoccurring subscription to The Athletic; set to autorenewal in August, so was cancelling the autorenewal. When I did they offered me a dirt cheap renewal rate and also threw in the NY TIMES games as part of it. I now do - or try to - the NY TIMES crosswords (includes that, Wordle, Sudoku etc.) on top on a daily basis etc. I use that more then I read The Athletic.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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There is no joy in seeing people lose their jobs but Kravitz' departure evokes no sympathy either. What that person does wasn't journalism.
 

sodenj5

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The Athletic Becomes NYT Sports Dept (gift link)

Over the weekend, the WSJ had a story on Athletic-NYT (gift link)
Interesting. There’s certainly significant overlap between the two, but I guess I don’t full understand how the print copy of the NYT sports section is going to function.

They don’t really go into details, but The Athletic stuff doesn’t really strike me as broadly national news. It’s best stuff is specific and detailed and not really in a newspaper format.
 

ColdSoxPack

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In a related development, the LA times has removed game accounts, standings, and box scores from its print and e-editions. The sports section is all magazine type pieces, starting yesterday. And I can't find the sports on tv grid.
 

AB in DC

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This doesn't seem promising.

“We plan to focus even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics and society at large,” the editors wrote in an email to The Times’s newsroom on Monday morning. “At the same time, we will scale back the newsroom’s coverage of games, players, teams and leagues.

The shuttering of the sports desk, which has more than 35 reporters and editors, is a major shift for The Times.
 

canderson

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Jul 16, 2005
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This doesn't seem promising.
This isn't really any different - the Times doesn't do many game stories or day-to-day beat coverage as-is. With this move, that'll increase exponentially. What I'm unsure of is how the non-Sports desks will cover the typical sports stories the NYT staff the last few months has covered.

FWIW the LA Times just announced it's no longer doing game stories and moving the sports deadline up to mid-afternoon.
 

luckiestman

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This isn't really any different - the Times doesn't do many game stories or day-to-day beat coverage as-is. With this move, that'll increase exponentially. What I'm unsure of is how the non-Sports desks will cover the typical sports stories the NYT staff the last few months has covered.

FWIW the LA Times just announced it's no longer doing game stories and moving the sports deadline up to mid-afternoon.
It seems obvious that some game stories all over the place are being written entirely or heavily assisted by AI. The Athletic has what I consider to be good Jets reporting but it’s never about game stuff.
 

Patriot_Reign

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Apr 21, 2011
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Read something yesterday where the NYT acquiring the Athletic gave them the option of removing their own sports department and now will "provide" their sports coverage via the Athletic yet the A's employees aren't eligible to be members of the NYT's union. Kind of shady.
 

nattysez

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I will enjoy his descent into irrelevance. He can join Jay Mariotti and Murray Chass there.
 

SoxJox

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Admittedly, I have not read through the entire thread, but I thought I read earlier that it wa the other way around...the NYT sold their sports coverage license to The Athletic.