Dear Cleveland, Welcome to The Athletic
by
Jason Lloyd, 6 hours ago
I walked into the Starbucks near San Francisco’s Union Square expecting a 15-minute meeting. The Cavs had just concluded a Sunday practice in January, the day before they played the Warriors, and I agreed to meet Adam Hansmann around the corner to talk about this idea he and his partner were bringing to Cleveland. I’ll have a cup of coffee, I reasoned, nod politely, shake his hand and go about my day.
Nearly two hours later, my cup was empty and I was still sitting in Starbucks on Geary Street, fascinated by what I was hearing and seriously contemplating a dramatic career change. Less than two months later, here we are. Welcome to
The Athletic.
I enjoyed my seven years at the
Akron Beacon Journal and wasn’t looking to make a change. But these are fragile times in the newspaper industry and no one has really unlocked the secret to stability. Giving away the product free for two decades certainly hasn’t been the answer. Now we’re trying something different.
We’re taking the sports section out of the newspaper and in the process eliminating the overhead of the printing presses, delivery trucks, ad departments, a staff of copy editors, circulation managers, a publisher … you get the idea. For the price of that nonfat latte at Starbucks, you’ll get a month’s worth of in-depth stories on the Browns, Indians, Cavs, Ohio State and the Blue Jackets. No pop-up ads, no annoying videos to watch, no surveys to take. Just quality journalism at an affordable price. The more people who subscribe, the more revenue we will reinvest to make
The Athletic even better.
I’m proud of the staff we’ve started to assemble — and there are plenty more coming in the weeks ahead. T.J. Zuppe is headed to spring training soon and will cover the Indians. T.J. comes from a radio background, but he has a deep understanding of advanced stats and is passionate about the game. He knows how to work a locker room, too.
We’ll have national voices such as Ken Berger, who lived in Cleveland and covered Cleveland sports for the Associated Press in another lifetime. Now Ken lives in New York and will help me on Cavs coverage as well as issues arising out of the league office.
Indians pitcher Cody Allen and catcher Roberto Perez celebrate after winning the American League pennant. (John E. Sokolowski/USA Today Sports)
Scott Raab is a native Clevelander with a Chief Wahoo tattoo and two books on Cleveland sports. After enjoying a successful career at GQ and Esquire, he’s also one of the finest wordsmiths I’ve ever read. Love him or hate him, Raab constructs vivid sentences that stain your memory.
Ron Ledgard will serve as the site’s managing editor. Ron hired me at the Beacon Journal in 2010 and turned me loose on the Cavs. He’s the type of editor who will work a story with writers, bring out their best and clean up their worst. He left the Beacon last year, and I’m thrilled to be reunited with him here.
There are more names coming soon, I just can’t reveal them all right now. You’ll notice I didn’t mention Browns writers. We are entering a critical time for this franchise and it’s already such an important position in a football-crazed town, it’s not one we’re taking lightly. We’re going slowly to make sure we get it right.
Adam and his co-founder, Alex Mather, raised more than $2 million to help launch Cleveland and are committed to making
The Athletic sustainable for decades to come. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be here. Alex grew up in Philadelphia cheering for Allen Iverson, Randall Cunningham, Charles Barkley and Mikael Renberg. He still wears his extra large Cunningham jersey from his teenage years. Adam is an Ohio native raised in Cincinnati. He empathizes with Browns fans because he lived through the Bengals of the 1990s, but baseball and the Reds are his passion. Both live in San Francisco now. Alex writes the code for
The Athletic’s terrific app and website, while Adam and I continue to work tirelessly together assembling this Cleveland staff.
Adam comes from a finance background, previously working in private equity and consulting. Alex served as Head of Product at Strava, entering on the ground floor and building it into a very powerful subscription business in the fitness technology space. Now they’re proving this model works in sports. They’ve already launched in Chicago and Toronto. Cleveland is stepping to the plate now and Detroit is on deck. There are plans to add dozens more sites across the U.S. and Canada in the coming months. One subscription gets you access to all of the sites and potentially hundreds of writers.
Ohio State players sing Carmen Ohio after a home win last year. (Greg Bartram/USA Today Sports)
Some people will see a paywall and immediately turn away. I understand because I used to think that way, too. But a subscription to
The Athletic is less than half the price of a subscription to Netflix or Spotify. A paywall is the only way to ensure quality journalism at a fair price. It’s why respected outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times have all adopted them. A handful of subscribers paying a nominal fee are worth far more to a publication than tens of thousands of clicks on a free story dependent on ad rates.
What will your subscription to
The Athletic purchase?
We’ll cover the news of the day, just like always, along with deeper, more thought-provoking topics. T.J. is exploring today how the Indians will score runs differently this year. I wrote today about why the salary cap and the Cavs’ tax positioning will make it difficult to keep Derrick Williams beyond this season.
I’ll typically travel to all of the Cavs games, just like always, but I’m staying in Boston this week after the Cavs-Celtics game Wednesday to spend the weekend at the Sloan Analytics Conference writing about advanced stats and their impact on sports. Cavs GM David Griffin is one of the panelists. After this weekend, I’ll return to doing Final Thoughts after Cavs games.
You’ll get podcasts and videos, breaking news and smart analysis, both here on the site but also presented on the company’s beautiful suite of mobile apps (available for
iPhone and
Android phones). What you won’t get are click-bait articles or 125 words rehashing a game you just watched. We’re moving beyond the “what” in an effort to better bring you the “why.”
If you’re ready to subscribe,
here’s a sale price to get things started. For the rest of today, we’ll also give a free
The Athletic t-shirt to every new subscriber as a token of our gratitude for your support while we start to earn your trust and build our staff in the coming weeks and months.
Thank you for your support. If you’re skeptical and want to wait and see how we do, I’m confident we’ll win you over. I believe in this. I believe in us.
We’re at the starting line of an exciting journey together and I can’t wait to get started. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.