mobaz
Veteran
Posts: 3,014
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Post by mobaz on Jan 7, 2022 21:09:12 GMT -5
The Athletic is being purchased by the New York Times, the absolute pits of a "news" organization. That’s a shame. It felt good to support an upstart company that wasn’t owned by one of the media behemoths, somehow this takes some of the pleasure away from that. I mean, it was never a scrappy underdog. It was a VC and Tech Bro startup that never turned a profit. In my view NYT is thus (barely) a step up. That said they have great writers writing great things of all shapes and sizes, which is super rare now. Doubt it stays that way, sadly.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 8, 2022 9:41:58 GMT -5
That’s a shame. It felt good to support an upstart company that wasn’t owned by one of the media behemoths, somehow this takes some of the pleasure away from that. I mean, it was never a scrappy underdog. It was a VC and Tech Bro startup that never turned a profit. In my view NYT is thus (barely) a step up. That said they have great writers writing great things of all shapes and sizes, which is super rare now. Doubt it stays that way, sadly. Was going to say this. The CEO bro stated that his goal was to put newspaper sports sections out of business when they started. The interesting thing is NYT basically doesn't have a sports section at this point. It's not clear NYT is going to dismantle The Athletic, although I'm sure they'll try harder to make it turn a profit. Think I read the Athletic made 70 million while spending 100 million last year.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 8, 2022 10:19:12 GMT -5
The Times currently has over 8M digital subscribers, with a goal of 10M this coming year by 2025. Getting The Athletic with its 1M eyeballs gets them down that road (but with some overlap no doubt). And they do have a sports section of sorts but no baseball this time of year: www.nytimes.com/section/sportsIn reporting the acquisition, they also said it would offer They've made a number of buys, mostly geared towards long-form readers. The Athletic fits into that category. The paper is also profitable. For example, they have more readers in Dallas, TX than The Daily News.
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Post by bosox904 on Jan 8, 2022 10:35:23 GMT -5
We subscribe to the Times and The Athletic, hopefully they'll have some sort of package deal to make it cheaper.
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Post by julyanmorley on Jan 8, 2022 10:37:25 GMT -5
I listened to a podcast with a successful former Athletic writer who aired some grievances while promoting his new Substack. He said the Athletic trains the writers to be single mindedly focused on creating content that attracts new subs and that they track how each article performs on this metric. This guy is a beat writer for an NBA team and he says he is much happier trying to deeply satisfy his audience (charging more for his Substack than an entire Athletic subscription...) than appealing to window shoppers.
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Post by foreverred9 on Jan 8, 2022 11:28:32 GMT -5
Their business model was "we don't made money now, but we believe we can get to X subscribers by Y at which point we'll make money" so it doesn't surprise me that they were hounding their talent to put out content that attracts new subscribers.
Unfortunately they couldn't get to self-sustainability, so their cash situation likely forced their hand. If the investors really liked their business model, maybe they could have gone to a Series E, but my guess is that they had enough and were ready for an exit.
The Series D valuation 2 years ago was $500M so the Times buying it at $550M basically got the investors money back, a disappointment given how much valuations have exploded in the past 2 years. And a kick in the face to the founders that it was the Times.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 8, 2022 12:35:02 GMT -5
At the start, founder had this to say about where they were headed: Selling to the Times would, ruefully, seem to move that goal forward.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 11, 2022 11:42:32 GMT -5
It looks like the Nationals are now the favored team to sign 16 year old 3b Elian Soto in the international draft.
Why does that matter?
Because....he is the younger brother of Juan Soto. Just another reason why Soto might very well stick around with the Nats long-term. Sorry radiohix.
Looks like there's a chance there will be a Soto brother connection in Washington down the road. And younger brother is a highly regarded prospect.
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Post by geostorm on Jan 18, 2022 12:47:44 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 18, 2022 22:01:36 GMT -5
But some call them the Sugar Land Gangsters of Love.
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Post by iakovos11 on Jan 18, 2022 22:21:10 GMT -5
But some call them the Sugar Land Gangsters of Love. That was my first thought when I read this. Brilliant!
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 19, 2022 1:15:45 GMT -5
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 19, 2022 6:52:00 GMT -5
Is Steve Miller associated with the Asstros ?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 19, 2022 11:41:38 GMT -5
Is Steve Miller associated with the Astros ? No, but Sugar Land is in metro Houston. So NASA + Texas + wanting fun logos to sell merch (probably + Lil' Jon...) = Space Cowboys.
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Post by foreverred9 on Jan 19, 2022 18:23:11 GMT -5
Rumor has it their mascot is going to be named Maurice.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 20, 2022 10:17:11 GMT -5
Rumor has it their mascot is going to be named Maurice. Will he be a beagle that they will teach to fly ?
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jimoh
Veteran
Posts: 4,123
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Post by jimoh on Jan 20, 2022 12:01:26 GMT -5
Rumor has it their mascot is going to be named Maurice. I would suggest a mascot names Pompey, short for Pompatus of Love, whatever that means.
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mobaz
Veteran
Posts: 3,014
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Post by mobaz on Jan 21, 2022 8:58:19 GMT -5
I've always had such a soft spot for knuckleballers, obviously influenced by Timmy Wakefield being around for the majority of my 1990s era weekend season tickets as a kid. I actually did two separate graduate-level projects on knuckleballs.
This sequence on Bo learning to hit the knuckleball is great. I'm really really shocked we haven't seen a return of the knuckleballer in the era of "any advantage we can get." No player development manager is trying to convert a fleet of AA burnouts?
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Post by orion09 on Feb 11, 2022 15:04:56 GMT -5
Didn’t realize Joe West had retired. That makes me a little nostalgic - I’ll never forget what he did for us as crew chief in the 2004 ALCS. He was the one to call Dave Roberts safe at second in Game 4. He overturned the A-Rod-Bronson Arroyo play in Game 6, of course, but he also made the decision to change Mark Bellhorn’s double to a home run in the same game. It took guts to make those calls in a packed Yankee Stadium. Those were pivotal moments, and I think it’s fair to say we don’t win the series if those calls go a different way. He always had my respect after that. Cheers to a great career.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Feb 11, 2022 15:14:05 GMT -5
Didn’t realize Joe West had retired. That makes me a little nostalgic - I’ll never forget what he did for us as crew chief in the 2004 ALCS. He was the one to call Dave Roberts safe at second in Game 4. He overturned the A-Rod-Bronson Arroyo play in Game 6, of course, but he also made the decision to change Mark Bellhorn’s double to a home run in the same game. It took guts to make those calls in a packed Yankee Stadium. Those were pivotal moments, and I think it’s fair to say we don’t win the series if those calls go a different way. He always had my respect after that. Cheers to a great career. Agreed. Those were gutsy and more importantly correct calls he made. If any of them went the other way the Sox probably don't win the 2004 ALCS. Also consider that in the 2018 ALCS, at Houston, he called Altuve's fly ball that hit Mookie's glove near the stands and was stolen from him (when a fan reached out and closed Mookie's glove) an out. That was a gutsy call. Yes, he botched a call in late September last year that allowed the Yankees to steal a game from the Sox, but on balance he did a great job where the Sox are concerned. He gets a lot of flack. Maybe that's because of his personality?
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mobaz
Veteran
Posts: 3,014
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Post by mobaz on Feb 15, 2022 18:52:29 GMT -5
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Post by dirtdog on Feb 15, 2022 21:53:59 GMT -5
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 16, 2022 12:33:25 GMT -5
Garrett Richards is now involved. He paid Kay $1700 at one point.
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 16, 2022 12:36:39 GMT -5
They don't need another LH outfielder, especially one who is brutal against LHP. You can't platoon him with JBJ or Verdugo.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Feb 16, 2022 12:57:15 GMT -5
Garrett Richards is now involved. He paid Kay $1700 at one point. Where does it say Garrett Richards is involved? Not saying he's not. Just don't see him mentioned in the link.
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