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About 70% of subscribers to new sports media company The Athletic have "signed up for a full year subscription up-front," with the publication "bringing in six-figures in revenue," according to Darren Heitner of FORBES. The new local sports news publication has "started small, focusing on curating content for the Chicago and Toronto markets only," but investor Courtside Ventures will "assist in launching another one-to-two new markets in the next couple of months." The Athletic is "focusing on going into regional markets, hiring people that are endemic to those markets and churning out quality, fresh content," and the largest sports markets will "likely be avoided for now." It recently raised $2.1M in a seed round "led by a $500,000 investment from Courtside Ventures." Courtside Ventures is "only about fourteen months old and has been involved in fourteen investments." But The Athletic investment is what Courtside Ventures Partner Deepen Parikh "seems most passionate about at the moment." Parikh: "We saw a big opportunity to capture incredible content and create a subscription model for $5 per month or $50 per year. It's been doing phenomenally well." Parikh added, "There's a real opportunity in going after the three-team markets. You don't have to go after New York and Los Angeles. Cleveland and Kansas City are good fits." Parikh said that The Athletic does "not need 100,000-200,000 subscribers to make it profitable." Parikh: "It is not a very high bar to reach profitability. It's different than an ad supported model." The Athletic Founder & CEO Alex Mather said that the publication "needs a bit less than 2,000 subscribers per team to break even." A Series A round of fundraising will "likely be announced once The Athletic reaches four-to-five markets" (
FORBES.com, 1/10).
