The Athletic Sale Shows the Age of Consolidation Is Upon Us

As a nearly two-year-old sports media start-up, The Athletic sold itself as a vulture hovering over the carcasses of local newspapers left to die in the digital age. The website’s cofounder Alex Mather went so far as to claim that The Athletic’s goal was to hasten the extinction of local news by poaching the most talented beat reporters from local sports sections—one of the few areas in which these antiquated publications continue to thrive. “We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing,” Mather said in 2017. In hindsight, it… Read Full Article