Athletic "reorganizing" with huge layoffs

[Getpucksdeep]

1 hour ago, DHawerchuk10 said:

Hockey Guy is great!

Yeah he is. Would love to see him Doug Demuro.  That guy basically killed Car and Driver (a little sadness for me as a long time subscriber) then got the big payday with Carsandbids.com.  Unsure what the hockey equivalent would be but THG deserves it. 

[That Aud Smell]

2 hours ago, Doohickie said:

Dave Portnoy is a comedy act.  I swear he's purposely doing self-parody.

PT Barnum. Don King. Vince McMahon.

He’s a barker. A promoter. A bit of a grifter. It’s a familiar shtick.

I’ll always say this for him: He knows talent. There’s a lot of it at Barstool.

[nfreeman]

That stinks.

It seems highly likely that at least 1 of the 3 Buffalo guys (Graham, Fairburn and Buscaglia), all of whom are very good IMHO, will get canned.

I like their league-wide NBA and NHL coverage, but I probably won't renew if there is a significant reduction in Buffalo coverage.

 

EDIT:  so it looks like they are laying off less than 4% of their writers.  Most of those laid off are named in this article, and none are Buffalo guys:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/12/new-york-times-reorganizes-the-athletic-with-layoffs/

 

[SwampD]

 

14 hours ago, notwoz said:

Maybe if you subscribed you could have saved a few jobs. And read some decent stories.

I already pay plenty extra for my sports entertainment. Anything else, I get here.

[Eleven]

25 minutes ago, SwampD said:

 

I already pay plenty extra for my sports entertainment. Anything else, I get here.

Don't give us that.  It's your obligation to save jobs by buying everything on the planet and you know it.

I subscribed for a couple of years when it started.  Some of the long-form stuff was quite good.  But there wasn't enough content to keep me interested, and the technical glitches (I had to put in my user name and password every time, which is a pain on a phone) put me off.  I hope it survives for the people who enjoy reading and writing it...

Edited June 13, 2023 by Eleven

[Sabel79]

59 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Don't give us that.  It's your obligation to save jobs by buying everything on the planet and you know it.

I subscribed for a couple of years when it started.  Some of the long-form stuff was quite good.  But there wasn't enough content to keep me interested, and the technical glitches (I had to put in my user name and password every time, which is a pain on a phone) put me off.  I hope it survives for the people who enjoy reading and writing it...

Evidently the NFL and Premier League are their bread and butter. 

The PL stuff is really, really good.  Worth keeping it for that, if you're me or similarly interested.  

[Mustache of God]

I have the Athletic through my NYT digital subscription, which I'm paying like 4$ a month for. Whenever my NYT "trial" runs out I go to cancel it and they offer another year of a trial membership. 

[Lanny]

2 hours ago, Eleven said:

Don't give us that.  It's your obligation to save jobs by buying everything on the planet and you know it.

I subscribed for a couple of years when it started.  Some of the long-form stuff was quite good.  But there wasn't enough content to keep me interested, and the technical glitches (I had to put in my user name and password every time, which is a pain on a phone) put me off.  I hope it survives for the people who enjoy reading and writing it...

I had this issue in my browser as well, especially when clicking a link to a story from twitter or somewhere else. I figured out I had to click the "open in app" button - which is always logged in as me. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Lanny

[xzy89c1]

Maybe the focus on women's sports they announced is not working out...

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

This sounds a bit like Pie in the Sky, but I've always wondered why the Athletic (by themselves) or newspapers (grouped together) haven't set up a network in every city for stringers to cover the opposing team, rather than get involved with the travel costs.

As an example, the Dallas Morning News has a beat writer for the Stars that only covers home games and doesn't travel with the team. If Dallas were to play in Buffalo they could have a Buffalo writer (let's say John Vogl) do all the dirty work there while the Dallas reporter gives them gives them the hot topics and questions for the stringer to use. That way, you would still get a good story for the visiting newspaper at a fraction of the price.

[SDS]

5 hours ago, \GoBillsInDallas/ said:

This sounds a bit like Pie in the Sky, but I've always wondered why the Athletic (by themselves) or newspapers (grouped together) haven't set up a network in every city for stringers to cover the opposing team, rather than get involved with the travel costs.

As an example, the Dallas Morning News has a beat writer for the Stars that only covers home games and doesn't travel with the team. If Dallas were to play in Buffalo they could have a Buffalo writer (let's say John Vogl) do all the dirty work there while the Dallas reporter gives them gives them the hot topics and questions for the stringer to use. That way, you would still get a good story for the visiting newspaper at a fraction of the price.

Isn’t that what the AP is for?

On 6/13/2023 at 10:12 AM, Mustache of God said:

I have the Athletic through my NYT digital subscription, which I'm paying like 4$ a month for. Whenever my NYT "trial" runs out I go to cancel it and they offer another year of a trial membership. 

Same here. There’s no pushback. They just give it to you.

[Crusader1969]

Thankfully Matthew Fairburn is still there …

wrote an excellent article today about Eichel and the lessons the Sabres should take from seeing him and the Knights winning the cup.   
 

I can’t wait for October !!! Go Sabres !!!

[Georgia Blizzard]

If they are smart, they'd be careful on who they let go and base it on the analytics of their subscription base.  I'd hypothesize that cities with significant numbers of fans that have relocated to other parts of the country would be most willing to subscribe and view articles from their home town.  i.e. are there more readers for Buffalo content on The Athletic than there are for Los Angeles ? 

I'm now in the south due to my job, I subscribe to Athletic to get local content on Sabres and Bills.  I have other sources for a national perspective.  If they get rid of the local Buffalo journalists, I'd drop my subscription immediately.

 

[SDS]

7 minutes ago, Georgia Blizzard said:

If they are smart, they'd be careful on who they let go and base it on the analytics of their subscription base.  I'd hypothesize that cities with significant numbers of fans that have relocated to other parts of the country would be most willing to subscribe and view articles from their home town.  i.e. are there more readers for Buffalo content on The Athletic than there are for Los Angeles ? 

I'm now in the south due to my job, I subscribe to Athletic to get local content on Sabres and Bills.  I have other sources for a national perspective.  If they get rid of the local Buffalo journalists, I'd drop my subscription immediately.

 

The New York Times is worth $6 billion. Is it your belief that they may not know which products are being viewed by which subscribers and what the rate of return is on each writer?

[Georgia Blizzard]

2 minutes ago, SDS said:

The New York Times is worth $6 billion. Is it your belief that they may not know which products are being viewed by which subscribers and what the rate of return is on each writer?

When did I say that ?

All I said is, if they are smart they'd use analytics to make their decisions

I've worked for Fortune 50 companies that were worth way more than the NY Times and that were way more profitable and while they possessed the information to better manage a downsizing, they didn't use it.

[ndirish1978]

On 6/12/2023 at 5:35 PM, notwoz said:

Maybe if you subscribed you could have saved a few jobs. And read some decent stories.

None of the people canned were from the Buffalo beat so this is unlikely. It's also a weird move to try to guilt someone post-event when their post already shows they don't care. Not sure what the purpose of this was.

[ndirish1978]

3 hours ago, Georgia Blizzard said:

If they are smart, they'd be careful on who they let go and base it on the analytics of their subscription base.  I'd hypothesize that cities with significant numbers of fans that have relocated to other parts of the country would be most willing to subscribe and view articles from their home town.  i.e. are there more readers for Buffalo content on The Athletic than there are for Los Angeles ? 

I'm now in the south due to my job, I subscribe to Athletic to get local content on Sabres and Bills.  I have other sources for a national perspective.  If they get rid of the local Buffalo journalists, I'd drop my subscription immediately.

 

 

They have stats views per article, feedback on the quality of the article from the little buttons at the end of every article and can track the number of comments in the comment section and questions posted to "mailbags." I would presume that's why none of the Buffalo guys are gone, they have solid interaction metrics. I see some stories on there with <10 responses but they are always from other markets.

[Lanny]

I cancelled my prior subscript and allowed the end date to pass. 

I was offered to re-subscribe at $19.99 for one year - which I did. I then cancelled the subscript so it would not auto renew in 2024 - they then offered me a reduced price for the 2024 renewal ($24). Which I also accepted. So i got 24 months for $44 and I just have to remember to cancel the subscript prior to auto renewal in summer of 2025. Which is worth it in my opinion.