The Athletic: Three years later

Three years ago last week, I wrote my first post on this new sports journalism venture getting it’s start in Chicago:

I have no idea whether or not this is going to be a successful venture. But the idea behind it is extremely interesting. The question, of course, is will fans pay for this kind of journalism? When stories are widely available for free, or the best stories are simply aggregated and rewritten on free sites, will fans pay for first-run original content? We'd all love to think they will. History tells us they probably won't. But thinking beyond the advertising-driven click culture is an important step for us to take.

Since then, of course, I’ve written and thought more about The Athletic than anything else in sports journalism. My friend Galen Clavio and I recently published the first of what I hope will be several scholarly articles on The Athletic (more on this article coming later this week).

What’s interesting, looking back, is how that first post of mine focused on moving away from click culture in journalism. Sitting here, three years later, perhaps the most important thing about The Athletic is bringing a subscription-only model to sports journalism and the potential implications for the greater world of journalism and media. In fact, viewed through the prism of history and looking at all of the emerging subscription models in news and out, The Athletic seems to have been ahead of its time.

I have no idea whether or not this is going to be a successful venture. But the idea behind it is extremely interesting. The question, of course, is will fans pay for this kind of journalism? When stories are widely available for free, or the best stories are simply aggregated and rewritten on free sites, will fans pay for first-run original content? We'd all love to think they will. History tells us they probably won't. But thinking beyond the advertising-driven click culture is an important step for us to take.

Since then, of course, I’ve written and thought more about The Athletic than anything else in sports journalism. My friend Galen Clavio and I recently published the first of what I hope will be several scholarly articles on The Athletic (more on this article coming later this week).

What’s interesting, looking back, is how that first post of mine focused on moving away from click culture in journalism. Sitting here, three years later, perhaps the most important thing about The Athletic is bringing a subscription-only model to sports journalism and the potential implications for the greater world of journalism and media. In fact, viewed through the prism of history and looking at all of the emerging subscription models in news and out, The Athletic seems to have been ahead of its time.