The Athletic had a round of layoffs today. White Sox beat reporter James Fegan was one of the cuts, according to the Cubs' beat writer.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Terrible business model. Can get similar quality from free sites.

Always thought it admirable but doomed to start a "writing first" sports site at exactly the moment podcasting was blowing up.

The Athletic went out and brought in the Count the Dings guys to back-fill podcasting but by then The Ringer/ESPN podcasts/Barstool even were already occupying the space. The NBA was sorta their bailiwick, going back to when those guys (Jade Hoye of the Count the Dings and his crew) were at ESPN as Truehoop or something like that, iirc. That the Athletic NBA podcasts were playing catch-up was evidenced by Big Wos getting poached by Bill Simmons a few years back. Jade getting severely injured in a car wreck back in November hurt the quality of their podcasts production--dude was an awesome producer--the shows he produced were worth listening to for his production work alone (he as a bit of a tinfoil hat and psychonaut and incorporated weird, extended intros and sound drops into a lot of his productions)--and tireless worker. The Saturday Slam and Jam is still a quality weekly listen. But podcasting in general is over-saturated and losing attention and ad dollars to other mediums/formats....TikTok eating up all the advertising budgets nowadays.

Seems you can't be just a sports writer in 2023...Woj, Windhorst, Simmons all those guys who used to be exclusively sports writers now earning their paychecks on their podcasts.

Plus there's Youtube. They can use their writing gig to promote their podcast or Youtube channel. The ones complaining about paying for the blue check mark are morons. That's another tool to promote their channels.

I let my Athletic sub run out. I think the value depends on who is covering your team. The Angels guy puts a lot of effort into it but he's a weirdo. He's critical which is good but he has a personality disorder and he acts like he's covering the White House. He tried using the fans as human shields a couple months ago when he was banned from Angels radio.

The 2 guys covering the Raiders are just clowns. Maybe that is part of the problem not sure why they need 2 guys covering the Raiders.

I provide sports content better than The Athletic, for free. Baseball, Football, NBA and some NHL. I'll even splatter in some PGA talk this week

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Reading in general has declined. People would rather watch TikTok videos of an orangutan smoking two cigars while juggling three live rats. 20M views easily.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I don't know exactly what I pay for the Athletic, but anytime I want to read high quality, interesting sports journalism the Athletic always delivers. It is more than worth the money.

Good writing is a wonderful craft whether sports, cars, politics, or anything else. To me podcasts are the lowest form of media, and there are some that I like. I'll always root for an endeavor like the Athletic not only because I enjoy the content they provide, but I believe when platforms like that succeed, they continue to provide outlets for people who want to study, develop, and improve at the craft of writing.

Just read Caller Bob posts, its the the same thing for free!

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Gotta link?

A sad day for Dan Bernstein, thought he was going to have an on-air orgasm the day the sale to the NY Times was announced.

This, but I know I'm only paying $2 a month.

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Love the Athletic. Read it every day and listen to several of their podcasts. I used to gladly pay full price till I got banned from posting comments. So I'll now play the game of getting it as cheaply as possible ($2 a month).

Lazerus and Powers both survived the cuts? They are pretty lousy covering the Hawks. Other NHL teams have much better writers.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Were you too MAGA with your comments?

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Only idiots pay for the athletic. Terrible business model.

I'd say The Athletic is about 2 bucks too much. If they brought it down two bucks, I'd subscribe.

I'd rather pay the Athletic a dollar a month to have access to all these writers work rather than now having to pay whatever on locals or substack to read em.

PFF laid off a bunch of guys too earlier this year. Maybe if these writers started using their publication's research and resources to make gambling picks, they could get still get paid to write.

LOL- no, I’m not a MAGA fool. I told a poster to fuck off when he called me a traitor since I wrote that Toews did not live up to his 8 * 84 M contract.

Turns out the Athletic laid off Corey Masisak who was one of their best hockey writers. Yet- both Lazerus and Powers kept their jobs. Chicago definitely doesn’t need two lousy hockey writers.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

You should go for the hat trick and find a third website to be short-tempered and unlikable on.

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YEP!

be just like TERRY"SPEEPES and ASS HOLE (farvefane) who post at that OTHER SITE ??

BACKSTABER!!!

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Can't be done. You know how much energy it takes to be unlikeable and short tempered just on one site? RIP LTG.

That hurts so much coming from someone like you. Trust me- I don't come here to read anything you post.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

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PFF is a joke. Their lead guy is an Irish clown that never played ball and they want to be taken seriously. Teams don't make a move without consulting him first according to him.
There was a story where they got a needed cash infusion then blew it on an app nobody wanted or they couldn't even get working. We'll see how much longer this lasts. Maybe the New York Times will buy them too.

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yeah that is CH at his finest !

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Perhaps if you could understand his posts that might change.

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