At least J. Person went out with a bang --- NY Times buys The Athletic --- "...turn out the lights, the party's over..."

[joemac]

3 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

Ooof. The Athletic was the last real place to get sports journalism. 

Guess that is officially dead now.

Yup.  If the NY Times is going to be controlling it, best believe its going to be dog-poo moving forward. 

[mrcompletely11]

$500 million in cash?   Damn

[Mr. Scot]

2 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

$500 million in cash?   Damn

Our OP thinks The Times spent that much money just to shut them down

[Snake]

5 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

$500 million in cash?   Damn

500 million in blue boys. 

[Harbingers]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Our OP thinks The Times spent that much money just to shut them down

Obviously they aren’t going to shut them down but they will probably cut a lot of beat writers to start. 

[Tbe]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Bingo. We desperately need a return to the trust busting ways of the early 20th century. We're living in a new age of robber barons and most people are just too dumb to see it because they hide behind private equity firms.

 

 

Buying a company on the verge of bankruptcy is hardly an example of monopoly making.

The athletic is too big to survive in its current form because not enough people want to subscribe (see constant huddle complaints about it not being free).

The times will eventually kill it or turn it into something else.

[Mr. Scot]

5 minutes ago, Harbingers said:

Obviously they aren’t going to shut them down but they will probably cut a lot of beat writers to start. 

Wouldn't necessarily bet on that seeing as The Times has basically said they expect to take a hit on their profitability for the next couple of years.

If they cut anybody up front, it's likely to be the more well known (and expensive) national guys than the local beat writers. But then those guys are the ones that make a lot of people want to subscribe, so that'd be a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I'd expect the only local guys who might have to worry immediately are those where the team has more than one writer covering them.

That's not the Panthers.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Mr. Scot

[LinvilleGorge]

12 minutes ago, Tbe said:

Buying a company on the verge of bankruptcy is hardly an example of monopoly making.

The athletic is too big to survive in its current form because not enough people want to subscribe (see constant huddle complaints about it not being free).

The times will eventually kill it or turn it into something else.

Buying competition that is on the verge of collapse to eliminate competition is idiotic. They clearly see something of value there.

[Harbingers]

Just now, Mr. Scot said:

Wouldn't necessarily bet on that seeing as The Times has basically said they expect to take a hit on their profitability for the next couple of years.

If they cut anybody up front, it's likely to be the more well known (and expensive) national guys than the local beat writers.

I'd expect the only local guys who might have to worry immediately are those where the team has more than one writer covering them.

That's not the Panthers.

Fair point but they are going to look to pare cost down somewhere though. I don’t know know how they pay their beat writers, if they are salaried or freelance(words written) but my thought was if a city has 10 sports teams, they could go from 10 writers down to 5 for smaller markets. But ya they could start at the top since the NYT may want to inject their people in there too. 

I don’t know where else they cut costs besides buildings & server infrastructure(will probably be integrated into NYT mainframe). 

Im assuming since The Athletic are losing their ass right now NYT will add it to their normal subscription for base level content and keep exclusives for more on the athletic side. While hoping the base level content will drive up clicks and subscriptions. 

[Mr. Scot]

6 minutes ago, Harbingers said:

Fair point but they are going to look to pare cost down somewhere though. I don’t know know how they pay their beat writers, if they are salaried or freelance(words written) but my thought was if a city has 10 sports teams, they could go from 10 writers down to 5 for smaller markets. But ya they could start at the top since the NYT may want to inject their people in there too. 

I don’t know where else they cut costs besides buildings & server infrastructure(will probably be integrated into NYT mainframe). 

Im assuming since The Athletic are losing their ass right now NYT will add it to their normal subscription for base level content and keep exclusives for more on the athletic side. While hoping the base level content will drive up clicks and subscriptions. 

The original idea behind The Athletic was basically to try and corner the market on all the best sportswriters. I doubt that strategy changes even if the operational structure does.

Obviously they're not going to stop covering NFL teams so the dumbass suggestion that they're just gonna kick Joe Person to the curb is silly.

Could they replace him with someone better or higher profile? I suppose, but if you were The New York Times would you want to do that for the Panthers?

Edited January 7, 2022 by Mr. Scot

[Mr. Scot]

 

[RumHam]

Deadspin 2.0

[Tbe]

35 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Buying competition that is on the verge of collapse to eliminate competition is idiotic. They clearly see something of value there.

Sure, they want some of those assets before they disappear. They see a brand name and a million some subscribers.

This is like Rhule (nyt) and Darnold (athletic).

Rhule (nyt) sees that strong arm (subscribers) and former high draft pick (cool brand) and thinks their genius will turn it around. Let’s send a 2nd pick and millions of cap dollars to get him!
 

Maybe. But in all likelihood nyt will drop it for low performance in a few years and eat that big chunk of change.

[Carl Spackler]

1 hour ago, Waldo said:

That entire industry is in decay. I have no idea how to salvage any of the quality that is left. Its not going to happen for free.

Journalism is being phased out and the rise of entertainment as news is rampant,  opinion is not journalsim. It's a cancer that needs to be figured out or we are headed to Idiocracy level reality. It's already here sadly.

 

I was gonna say, "Idiocracy" isn't a funny movie. It's a reflection of modern times.