The Athletic is a subscription sports publisher focused on in-depth local and national sports journalism. It charges $60/year ($5/month) and has gained over 100,000 paid subscribers (60% under 34) with a 90% retention rate. The company emphasizes fewer, deeper articles aimed at diehard fans, hiring experienced full-time writers (about 300 editorial staff) and roughly 400 contributors. It operates in 47 local markets and reports that most markets are profitable in the first year; all markets over one year old are profitable and most over six months are profitable. The Athletic ties compensation and equity to performance and subscriber acquisition for writers, and uses reader feedback and engagement signals rather than pageviews. The company plans to expand into audio and video while continuing local-market growth and experiments to deepen community engagement. The Athletic is a subscription sports media company focused on delivering local editorial coverage, in-depth analysis, original reporting and storytelling. Launched earlier this year and backed by Y Combinator, the company operates a website and mobile apps. It is currently live in Chicago and Toronto. The Athletic raised $2.3M in seed funding to support its expansion plans. The company intends to use the funds to expand into new cities. The report highlights the company’s editorial focus and digital product presence as central to its growth strategy.

Total raised

$42M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

Oct 2018