The Athletic: Sports News - Sports news updates

The Athletic provides compelling narratives and insightful analysis that connect sports enthusiasts to the essence of the game. Whether it's timely news coverage, real-time commentary, in-depth features, or exclusive interviews, The Athletic app offers all the significant sports narratives.

With a newsroom comprising over 400 full-time professionals, The Athletic offers extensive reporting on numerous professional and college teams across more than 47 North American regions. The platform boasts award-winning journalists who cover every major league, including NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, NWSL, PGA, NCAA Football, NCAA Men's College Basketball, NCAA Women's College Basketball, EPL, Champions League, and beyond.

Subscribers can stay informed, delve deeper into stories, and engage in discussions through exclusive articles, podcasts, newsletters, live Q&As, and more. For just $5.99 per month (billed annually), subscribers gain unrestricted access to all exclusive content from The Athletic.

To start exploring the offerings, download the app today and enjoy a complimentary 7-day trial.

Brief Introduction:

The Athletic is a subscription-based sports journalism department of The New York Times.

It provides national and local coverage in 47 North American cities as well as the United Kingdom. The Athletic also covers national stories from top professional and college sports. The Athletic's coverage focuses on a mix of long-form journalism, original reporting, and in-depth analysis. Its business model is predicated on dis-aggregating the sports section of local newspapers, and reaching non-local fans not reached by a local newspaper.

The Athletic was acquired by The New York Times Company for $550 million in 2022. In July 2023, The Athletic was integrated into The New York Times and replaced its sports department.

What’s New

Fixes a bug where sometimes the podcast player queue would be incorrectly cleared.

It also contains other bug fixes and improvements.

History:

The Athletic was founded by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, former coworkers at subscription-based fitness company Strava, with the mission of producing "smarter coverage for die-hard fans." The company was built as an alternative to the struggling ad-supported models. The Athletic relies on subscription revenue, not advertising revenue, to support the business.Mather and Hansmann believed sports fans would be willing to pay for good reporting and writing, a clean app and no ads. At the time, a few newspapers were trying out paywalls, but the common industry view was that information on the internet needed to be free.

As part of Y Combinator's summer 2016 batch, the site originally launched in Chicago in January 2016,with Jon Greenberg serving as the founding editor, along with Sahadev Sharma (Cubs) and Scott Powers (Blackhawks). Greenberg and Powers previously worked at ESPN Chicago, while Sharma left Baseball Prospectus' Cubs vertical to join the website.

Coverage:

As of 2022, The Athletic provided local coverage in 47 cities and regions of North America as well as coverage in the United Kingdom. It includes the 32 National Football League teams, the 30 Major League Baseball teams, the 30 National Basketball Association teams, and 23 of the 32 National Hockey League teams.

What you'll love about The Athletic

Select the teams and leagues you want to follow. Whether you’re crazy about Manchester United or the Minnesota Wild, we'll show you the most relevant sports news possible, including coverage you can't get anywhere else.

Rely on The Athletic's highly-rated iOS and Android apps for scores, stats, breaking news, long-form features and audio offerings.

Listen to podcasts from The Athletic for in-depth analysis and exclusive storytelling. Our experts dish on everything from women's soccer to fantasy baseball, and motorsports to hockey.

Read Newsletters from The Athletic to keep up to date on the most important stories in sports and get personalized content recommendations.

Engage with our journalists via Live Rooms and Live Q&A sessions. Ask real-time questions and get real-time answers, and see what your fellow fans have to say.

Our roots

The Athletic is the brainchild of Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, former colleagues at the fitness tracking app Strava. In 2016, they founded The Athletic with the goal of building the best newsroom in sports, filling a void for fans hungry for deeper sports news and better coverage of their local teams. In 2022, The Athletic was acquired by The New York Times Company. The Athletic is available as a standalone subscription, or with an All Access or Home Delivery subscription from The New York Times.