Making Media
Episode 54 Building The Athletic
Making Media

Episode 54: Building The Athletic

Making Media

Episode 54

Building The Athletic

Adam Hansmann is the co-founder of The Athletic. We cover serving the user instead of the advertiser, how they arrived at the pricing and business model, and the New York Times acquisition.

(00:00:00) - Welcome to Making Media

(00:01:45) - First question - The playbook for subscription based businesses

(00:05:35) - User-centric development, as opposed to advertiser-centric in media

(00:07:32) - Adam’s reflections on the state of media and business development

(00:09:24) - Managing feedback in the subscription model between readers and journalists

(00:12:21) - The level of transparency in company meetings and how positivity affects the team 

(00:15:02) - Adam’s strategy when exploring alternative channels beyond Twitter to reach a broader audience

(00:17:16) - Long-form journalism pieces and how it affected subscription performance

(00:18:42) - The importance of bundling in The Athletic’s business

(00:22:09) - Insights revealed when transitioning from local coverage to national content

(00:23:17) - Adam’s key factors for fostering long-term alignment with employees 

(00:25:36) - How funding constraints in the early days influenced the business operations

(00:28:07) - The implementation of The Athletic’s pricing model and the factors that have contributed to its consistency over time

(00:30:37) - Balancing the app and website as an all-in destination versus leveraging other platforms

(00:32:43) - Subsequent changes since being acquired by The Times

(00:34:03) - Add-on businesses like events and merchandise and their relevance to the overall business strategy

(00:35:21) - The integration of multimedia components such as podcasts and videos

(00:37:15) - Navigating the transition into The Times, ensuring the preservation of existing culture and fostering alignment for the next phase

(00:39:51) - Potential opportunities and initiatives that Adam is excited about

(00:42:59) - Debrief

 

Building The Athletic

Introduction

Dom
Welcome back to Making Media. This week, we are joined by Co-Founder of The Athletic, Adam Hansmann. As an early subscriber to The Athletic, it holds a fond place in my heart. It launched in 2016, which is not that long ago. But remember, at that time, the idea of paying for content was still considered contrarian, a questionable business model at best.

And at that time, newspapers and the local coverage of sports was just dwindling. It was disappearing. So the idea of launching this hyperlocal publication was not exactly attaching yourself or riding this massive market expansion, this growing TAM. It's very interesting to look back at that time and then consider where we are today.

Adam shares a lot of the lessons that he took away from his experience building this business. And it's abundantly clear that he and his co-founder, Alex built something that they wanted. They were solving a problem they experienced in their own lives. There's a lot to learn here, a lot of interesting takeaways from Adam. Please enjoy this conversation with Adam Hansmann.

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