"The Athletic" launches in the UK | About to be bought by NYT for $550m (p 32)

[decmancity]

I’m surprised at how quickly The Athletic has fallen from being interesting to click bait nonsense.
Yes, everyone hates Kyle Walker now, but for a news source that promised originality and insight to send me alerts and emails to re-read the same old crap about Walkers indiscretions has highlighted how far it has fallen.

Looking forward to cancelling my subscription no matter what offers they throw at me.

Careful to bracket The Athletic 'Football' in with the rest of it, their coverage on other sports is very good and I have read quite a few interesting articles on there in the past week in the football section. There hasn't been a ball kicked for weeks, what do you want them to write about?

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Good video on the failure of our defensive transition, the flaw in bringing in Rodri, keeping Gundogan and moving Dinho back into CB. Something that's been very obvious and Pep needs to admit failure on and fix for next season.

 

[cheekybids]

Careful to bracket The Athletic 'Football' in with the rest of it, their coverage on other sports is very good and I have read quite a few interesting articles on there in the past week in the football section. There hasn't been a ball kicked for weeks, what do you want them to write about?

They don’t need to get involved in click bait, writing nasty non sporting articles. There’s surely more that could be written.

 

[domalino]

The Athletic has bought Muddy Knees Media, James Richardson and Ian Macintosh's breakaway from the Guardian.

Will be interesting to see what comes of this. The Athletic did snap up a lot of the best writers in the country, so it'll be good to have them on podcasts, and I wonder what will happen RE City where presumably Sam Lee will now start featuring and maybe even David Mooney who currently has an Athletic City focused podcast?

 

[Ric]

The Athletic has bought Muddy Knees Media, James Richardson and Ian Macintosh's breakaway from the Guardian.

Will be interesting to see what comes of this. The Athletic did snap up a lot of the best writers in the country, so it'll be good to have them on podcasts, and I wonder what will happen RE City where presumably Sam Lee will now start featuring and maybe even David Mooney who currently has an Athletic City focused podcast?

Surprised they're making acquisitions like this just after letting a load of writers go, albeit mainly in the States. Maybe they see podcasting as a more lucrative way forward than traditional football writing?

 

[domalino]

Surprised they're making acquisitions like this just after letting a load of writers go, albeit mainly in the States. Maybe they see podcasting as a more lucrative way forward than traditional football writing?

I wonder if it was a bargain that came along at the right time.

They were obviously looking to move into podcasting with Ornstein and Chapman and all the club specific shows, maybe Muddy Knees expanded too quickly themselves and when Covid-19 decimated ad revenues they found themselves in need of a big corporate lifeboat?

 

[SWP's back]

Surprised they're making acquisitions like this just after letting a load of writers go, albeit mainly in the States. Maybe they see podcasting as a more lucrative way forward than traditional football writing?

It’s certainly not expensive to produce one would imagine.

 

[domalino]

It’s certainly not expensive to produce one would imagine.

THe money to be made is insane as well. Muddy Knees claimed to have 500,000 listeners per episode last year, and the average rate for podcast advertisers is roughly $18 per 1000 listeners for a 30 second ad and can be up to $40.

Each episode has at least 4 ads, so you're talking £40k an episode.

According to YouGov, it's the second most popular radio programme for men in the country -

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/explore/radio_programme/The_Totally_Football_Show

And it's main demographic is Men 21-40 which is a gold mine for advertisers.

 

[SWP's back]

THe money to be made is insane as well. Muddy Knees claimed to have 500,000 listeners per episode last year, and the average rate for podcast advertisers is roughly $18 per 1000 listeners for a 30 second ad and can be up to $40.

Each episode has at least 4 ads, so you're talking £40k an episode.

According to YouGov, it's the second most popular radio programme for men in the country -

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/explore/radio_programme/The_Totally_Football_Show

And it's main demographic is Men 21-40 which is a gold mine for advertisers.

Fuck me. Well done Jimbo for fucking of The Guardian.

 

[cptaidan88]

I listen to it 3x a week. Its my preferred podcast, going into just the right amount of detail on the subjects I give a shit about. I think its healthy to listen to various views from time to time rather than just listening to purely city focused things, even if I don't necessarily agree with every point. Although often presented in a whimsical fashion, some of the analysis done is far better than anything provided on tv.

Sam Lee is on todays episode.

I have an athletic subscription at the minute, but intending to cancel it as its not worth £60 to me. Hoping they don't put this behind the paywall.