One of the most prominent newspapers in the United States, The New York Times has planned to buy a popular sports site named ‘The Athletic’ for a whopping $550 Million.
In an attempt to expand its audience of paying subscribers as the newspaper print ads business fades, the publishing house has been diversifying its coverage with lifestyle advice, games, and recipes, helping it counter a pullback from the politics-driven news traffic boom of 2020.
Source: Boardroom Mario Tama/Getty Images
This buyout is one of the outlet’s largest-ever acquisitions. The company spent $1.1 billion on the Boston Globe in 1993 and $410 million for About.com in 2005, both of which it later sold for less.
“We are now in pursuit of a goal meaningfully larger than 10 million subscriptions and believe The Athletic will enable us to expand our addressable market of potential subscribers,” said New York Times Co. CEO Meredith Kopit Levien in a news release Thursday.
The Athletic, which is based in San Francisco, covers national and local sports and has an impressive subscriber count of around 1.2 million. It was founded in 2016 and has over 400 editorial employees. After the sale closes, which is expected in the current quarter, The Athletic will be a Times Co. subsidiary and operate separately.
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