The New York Times Pounces For The Athletic

The Athletic, which has shaken up the established sports editorial landscape in the UK and US since its launch in 2016, has been acquired by the New York Times (NYT) in an all-cash deal worth $550m (£406m).

The platform has 1.2 million subscribers and covers more than 200 teams across the world, while the NYT has added more than eight million paid subscriber across its digital and print products over the past three years.

The Athletic embarked on an aggressive hiring spree ahead of its launch in the UK in August 2019, luring top sportswriters from various national and regional newspapers. The platform has also branched out into podcasts, ensuring a significant presence in terms of written and audio sports content.

“Acquiring The Athletic puts us in a position to be a global leader in sports journalism and offer English speakers around the world another reason to turn to the Times Company to meet their daily news and life needs,” the New York Times’ CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said.

“The Times already provides distinctive sports coverage for a general interest audience as part of our core report. As a standalone product, The Athletic will enable us to offer much more — extensive coverage for fans who seek a deep connection to and understanding of their favourite teams, leagues and players.

“We are now in pursuit of a goal meaningfully larger than 10 million subscriptions and believe The Athletic will enable us to expand our addressable market of potential subscribers.” 

The Athletic’s founders, Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, will stay on with the NYT following the acquisition.

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