I’ve subscribed. There are articles that ordinarily I wouldn’t read, I mean who buys or subscribed to all the daily newspapers? The detail is good, background more honest than I usually read, so far only one article which I thought was Dogsh1t. You can choose to ignore the future, but if we are to achieve TB’s top 10 EPL status far more will be written about us outside of Sussex than within.
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[Football] The Athletic
- Thread starter Normal Rob
- Start date
redoubtable seagull
Well-known member
- Oct 27, 2004
- 2,531
I’ve signed up for the first month free and will do the 12 months at £30. Then it’ll be decision time.
But I’m enjoying it so far. Some good writers including Simon Hughes and Michael Cox. The Rafa piece was interesting today and Naylor’s articles are palatable.
But I’m enjoying it so far. Some good writers including Simon Hughes and Michael Cox. The Rafa piece was interesting today and Naylor’s articles are palatable.
This. Rightly or wrongly, I'm pretty sure that most of us nowadays expect to have access to good quality stuff for free apropos the Guardian business model. Very very difficult to make a case for a subscription-based business model for sports coverage when there's plenty of decent free coverage available elsewhere. Most of today's sports coverage, irrespective of quality, is tomorrow's chip paper anyway
I don’t buy this argument. Plenty of people pay extra for premium versions of things you can get free elsewhere. I subscribe to The Guardian and Spotify for services I could get gratis elsewhere albeit with ads. It’s the same with many other things like queue-jumping at Alton Towers, Speedy Boarding. Folk can and will pay more for a slightly better service.
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 70,204
Fair enough. But for SPORTS coverage? Can count on the fingers of two hands, excluding thumbs, the number of sports writers I'd pay to read. And most of them are dead.
acrossthepond
Active member
Yep, I've signed up on the cut price deal. Looks like good value so far, decent articles, and love the lack of ads/clickbait. Also love being able to access all the MLB/NBA etc content.
They've got loads of Venture Capital money behind them, so they won't be going bust anytime soon - it's all about driving traffic over the platform now.
atp
They've got loads of Venture Capital money behind them, so they won't be going bust anytime soon - it's all about driving traffic over the platform now.
atp
I've not been tempted to subscribe yet. I managed to see Naylor's article on the Amex sponsorship which was as predictably dry and derivative as his Argus stuff. Not sure why I'd want to pay for it.
Ernest
Stupid IDIOT
This. Rightly or wrongly, I'm pretty sure that most of us nowadays expect to have access to good quality stuff for free apropos the Guardian business model. Very very difficult to make a case for a subscription-based business model for sports coverage when there's plenty of decent free coverage available elsewhere. Most of today's sports coverage, irrespective of quality, is tomorrow's chip paper anyway
Apart from the idiots on SKY on Sunday morning I don't know any sports journalists, all the decent ones are dead.
ForestRowSeagull
Well-known member
Yeah I’ve signed up and seems good value at the moment. I follow a lot of US sports plus the general premier league writing is of high quality (it should be given who they’ve poached). The app is also very well put together and the ‘feed’ of suggested content works well. For £30 a year I think it’s worth it for now.
Ernest
Stupid IDIOT
The thing that may be their undoing is the constant spamming on FB and Twitter, stupid idea of a marketing **** to annoy everyone and end up being unfollowed. Should have made the first month free so you know exactly what you're getting
And what were you doing listening to Talk Sport for ?
vegster
Sanity Clause
- May 5, 2008
- 27,894
Have a very old radio up the plot and wanted to listen to something while I picked 4 lb of beans, it's so old it gets very few stations,so it was 5live,Radio 4, Talkshite or some French bloke.
Hampster Gull
New member
- Dec 22, 2010
- 13,462
I’ve signed up to trial and half price. Early days. So far Albion coverage basic and not worth a fee. Other articles can be. On the fence but suspect will sign up only if I want insight on other teams
Supadupahands
New member
- Mar 10, 2016
- 87
I signed up realised it was overblown guff and got my money back. If I’m going to read people opinions on our performance it might as well be for free on here, someone is gonna be right at some point.
Jimmehh
Well-known member
Guess you’re trolling - considering that’s exactly what they did... whilst making first year half price
Greg Bobkin
Silver Seagull
- May 22, 2012
- 14,851
Surely there'd be copyright issues surround that kind of venture, no? Unless it was News UK (or whatever it's called now) who lumped in stuff from Talkshite, Sky Sports, The Times and The Sun?
As for The Athletic in general, I've not signed up, but completely get why Naylor (and probably all of the others) is hawking it to an inch of its life – they need it to succeed and probably have targets to hit for new readers/subscribers. Personally a few tweets wouldn't bother me and I've no axe to grind with AN – he's entitled to his opinions and many of them are shared with posters on here!
I don't get the outrage about it – there is obviously a market demand. Before the internet, people would've been more than happy to pay 8p a day (or 16p without the discount) for content, but all of a sudden it goes against everything everyone stands for. The online advertising business model isn't all its cracked up to be in many cases and I can definitely see the appeal with paid for content – I may be wrong, but I don't see it going tits up any time soon. No ads, bespoke content – all good if that's your sort of thing...
There would be copyright issue with films and TV that you find on Netflix and music that you find on Spotify but they exist without any worries. There are already websites that aggregate content from different publishers (I just did some work for one) what there isn't is one that specialises in one subject - but I see no reason why such a concept would be impossible
Nathan
Well-known member
- Jan 8, 2010
- 3,754
Doing the free 30 days at the moment and will probably sign up for the year for 30 quid. Some interesting articles, and the app is good in places but they can still do a lot more. The blog on transfer day was just unreadable and a mess. The focus of the podcasts are all US sports, I guess they will do a premier league one in time. Was surprised there was no match report on the Sunday, but Naylor said they don't do that, they do more in-depth analysis - which to be fair does read better and is more interesting.
The Argus website is bad, too many ads and no real depth to the coverage. The BBC is just bland. The Athletic is something different to what is about at the moment, it isn't for everyone and not sure it will be for me if they are charging 60 quid a year, but for now it is worth the money.
The Argus website is bad, too many ads and no real depth to the coverage. The BBC is just bland. The Athletic is something different to what is about at the moment, it isn't for everyone and not sure it will be for me if they are charging 60 quid a year, but for now it is worth the money.
Greg Bobkin
Silver Seagull
- May 22, 2012
- 14,851
I stand corrected. So is the content reproduced under license, then? Because, looking at the Ts and Cs on the Guardian, it seems pretty clear:
"3. Use of material appearing on the Guardian Site
Your use of the Guardian Site is for your own personal and non-commercial use only. You acknowledge that, as between Guardian and you, except for user content and advertisements (as discussed below), Guardian is the sole owner of all content on the Guardian Site, including, without limitation, all applicable copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, trade names, logos, and other intellectual property rights thereto, as well as text, images, graphics, logos, audio, video and other material appearing on the Guardian Site (“Guardian Content”). The Guardian Site and the Guardian Content are protected by the copyright laws and other intellectual property laws of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia and are protected globally by applicable international copyright treaties.
You may download and print extracts from the Guardian Content for your own personal and non-commercial use only, provided you maintain and abide by any author attribution, copyright or trademark notice or restriction in any material that you download or print. You may not use any Guardian Content for any other purpose without our prior written approval. Except as expressly authorised by the Guardian, you are not allowed to create a database in electronic or paper form comprising all or part of the material appearing on the Guardian Site."