The Athletic... anybody signed up?

It’s a sports website that is popular in the US and launched here a couple of months ago to cover football. It’s a Netflix type thing, you pay a monthly subscription to it but there are no ads. Mainly long form written pieces. They’ve gone on a ruthless hiring spree since launch, gutting the sports desks of major newspapers. It’s basically the who’s who of football journalism on there now.

On the free trial at the moment and seems really good tbf. Can’t see myself paying for it after the trial though. Maybe if they hire a dedicated Barnsley writer like they have other Championship teams.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/athletic-hiring-spree

https://theathletic.com

 

Most of the people writing for it have been posting 50% off codes, so it’s only £2 (or £2.50) a month. Is it worth that much?

 

I can see it just being endless articles about the clubs for which they have hired dedicated writers, and I get enough of that from Sky and the mainstream press!

 

Yeah I read they have dedicated writers for 6 or so championship teams and not the others and thought, no thanks.

I listen to not the top 20 podcast and watch some YouTube vlogs and I can't imagine there would be much on Barnsley in the Athletic or the Championship that wouldnt feature in these places.

 

I think it depends how much of an interest you have in footy beyond bfc. Some really great stuff on there, stuff you don't see elsewhere, but nothing about us yet. I think it's only a matter of time before they have somebody writing about us though. I think it's worth a pop if you're into your football.

It's going to be tough for local papers if they're successful. I don't see how they can compete in terms of the quality of articles. No slight on the Chron editorial staff because they could well be understaffed and overworked like most local papers, but most of the stuff you see on there is fairly standard isn't it? Informative and well put together yes, but it doesn't really go beyond that imo, and nowadays I think you have to do that somehow. People are on here and on Twitter all day, nobody relies on the Chron for info anymore. They're looking for the insider details, the context and background behind what we see on the pitch and hear from club officials. It's such an interesting period for us at the moment, there are a lot of big questions that need answering and likely big stories to tell off the back of them.

One plus point for The Chronicle though is that the website isn't too bad yet. Most other locals are a nightmare with adverts everywhere, unreadable.

 

Whilst they have no dedicated coverage bar the bigger championship clubs I don’t really see the point. Especially by paying a subscription too. If they served other clubs too I would be more inclined.