49August 26, 2019TheAthletic’s goalisn’tforeverystorytoreachthelargest
audience;it’sforeachonetofilla niche.Thetargetdemo-
graphic,Mathersays,is thefanwhofollowsa team,winor
lose.HeandHansmannsaytheycanpotentiallyamasstens
ofmillionsofsubscribersbycollectingdie-hardfansofevery
teamunderoneroof.
Investors, media executives, and reporters who don’t work
for the Athletic all express skepticism about the business.
But almost no one will share these sentiments publicly. Who
wants to be seen badmouthing one of the only places still hir-
ing journalists? Bringing on writers for top dollar and free-
ing them from chasing clicks is admirable, the doubters say,
but it’s no way to make money. The digital media economy
is a cutthroat competition for attention, and there are plenty
of places online to read about sports for free, from ESPN to
local newspapers to team websites.
“It’s hugely competitive,” says Joseph Lichterman, man-
ager of editorial and digital strategy at the Lenfest Institute
for Journalism. The Athletic, he points out, competes not
only with other news organizations but also with Netflix Inc.
and Spotify Technology SA and companies selling subscrip-
tions for razors, meal kits, and underwear. McClatchy, which
owns 30 daily newspapers across the country, has responded
to the Athletic by offering readers in 10 markets regional,
sports-only digital subscriptions for $50 a year.
A lot rides on whether the Athletic can retain the large
number of subscribers still reading through introductory dis-
counts. Doing so will require adding to the service so that
it still feels like a bargain when it comes time to renew at
full price. Earlier this year, the company added a podcast
network—mostly beat writers talking about their teams and
leagues—along with a New York office covering the business
of sports. The move into the Premier League is as much
about pleasing current subscribers as it is about adding new
ones in the U.K.
Mather says more than 80% of users re-up after their first
year, and the rate is the same whether or not they first signed
up at a discount. The Lenfest Institute estimates that news-
papers keep only about half their digital subscribers after a
year. “We have not seen anything like the retention they’ve
put up at the scale they’ve put up,” says Daniel Gulati, man-
aging director at Comcast Ventures LLC, an Athletic investor.
The company is profitable in all but a few markets, accord-
ing to Mather, who says it usually takes 6 to 12 months to
break even. The money losers, he says, are the youngest
cities, which include Phoenix and Washington, D.C. He
declined to comment on overall revenue and losses other
than to say the site is still looking to grow by expanding cov-
erage and adding writers. Within the past year, it has intro-
duced national coverage of boxing, motor sports, and fantasy
baseball. “There’s always a moment where, if we need to,
we can pull the rip cord and worry less about the next con-
tinent and get to profitability,” says Mather.
In June the Athletic had a Bird Box moment, a breakout hit
that came out of nowhere. Jenks, the 29-year-old Seattle Times
alum, unearthed what became the unofficial tag line of the
NBA Finals: “Board man gets paid.” The phrase comes from
Kawhi Leonard, who was then leading the Toronto Raptors to
their first championship. Leonard had initially used it years
ago, as a college player at San Diego State University, when
he would grab rebounds during practice. (The brag is a pun
on “board,” another word for rebound, and, of course, chair-
man of the board.) Jenks found out about it by calling his for-
mer teammates and coaches for an oral history.
He had written this type of story twice before at the site,
calling college teammates of NBA stars Klay Thompson and
Damian Lillard to talk about what they were like. Both pieces
had done well, Jenks says. Leonard’s went viral, however,
landing at just the right time to provide a peek into the per-
sonality of the league’s most laconic superstar. (Leonard’s
most famous utterance in eight professional seasons was tell-
ing reporters that he was a “fun guy” before laughing like a
robot about to fail the Turing test.) Jenks’s story showed that
Leonard was as enigmatic in private and that, when he did
speak, he sounded like a modern-day folk hero.
ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy said Leonard’s four-
word catchphrase on air during Game 3 of the Finals. “That
was a great piece in the Athletic,” added play-by-play man
MikeBreen,providingfreeadvertisingforanaudienceof
10 million.Leonardworea T-shirtwiththelineonit atthe
victory parade. Nearly 1,800 people have signed up for sub-
scriptions to read Jenks’s story, making it one of the top 10
in the site’s history. “He wrote the defining piece of the NBA
playoffs from Seattle,” says Hansmann. “And Seattle doesn’t
even have an NBA team.” <BW>Mather and Hansmann