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Speaker 1: What we're offering is something really different, and I think

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Speaker 1: that really is liberating for our writers to allow them

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Speaker 1: to kind of emerge and go buy what they see.

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Speaker 1: Trust your eyes. What are your eyes telling you? Would

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Speaker 1: you look at a game?

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Speaker 2: What are you seeing?

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Speaker 1: Trust them and you can write stories off of that.

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Speaker 1: It takes a while, but they start to trust their

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Speaker 1: eyes and they start to trust what they think is happening,

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Speaker 1: you know, and that makes all the difference in a while,

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Speaker 1: makes and they can speak authoritatively about the team they cover,

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Speaker 1: about the team they cover because they're real well.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to the final episode of Dell Technology Small Business

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Speaker 3: pod Print series. I am Jade Hoy, executive producer of

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Speaker 3: the Athletic podcast Network. Of the second year in a row,

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Speaker 3: Dell Technologies has brought together the best podcasters in the

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Speaker 3: industry to share stories, anecdotes of inspiration and advice, and

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Speaker 3: how to traverse these unsettling times in the small business world.

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Speaker 3: In episodes one and two, the Athletics co founders Alex

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Speaker 3: Mather and Adam Hansman brought us through the birth development

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Speaker 3: of a simple idea which was served sports fans with

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Speaker 3: exceptional journalism in a wide variety of sports that other

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Speaker 3: outlets were increasingly unwilling to support.

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Speaker 4: We don't ask for permission to do things here, and

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Speaker 4: that's an important aspect to our culture.

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Speaker 5: If you want to do something, then you don't want

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Speaker 5: to hear about it. You just go do it and

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Speaker 5: go do it.

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Speaker 3: No ads, no pop ups, no no bulks. What started

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Speaker 3: with a handful of people was now hundreds of journalists, podcasters,

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Speaker 3: editors and managers spread out across major cities in the

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Speaker 3: US and Canada.

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Speaker 5: I mean the international borders of care.

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Speaker 3: As detailed in episode two. The expansion into the Bay

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Speaker 3: Area was a success, but there would be no sleep

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Speaker 3: in UK. The team set their focus on a new market,

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Speaker 3: the United Kingdom, and over the course of several days

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Speaker 3: in late May two thousand ninety, team, most of the

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Speaker 3: top sports writers in England were about to hear the

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Speaker 3: pitchable Lifetime.

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Speaker 6: What were sort of the challenges or thoughts and goals

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Speaker 6: behind going over the ocean and going to UK.

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Speaker 4: We had always pegged the UK as a country where

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Speaker 4: we wanted to cover the premier league.

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Speaker 5: We wanted to do it at some point.

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Speaker 4: Alex Mather, co founder CEO of the Athletic I think

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Speaker 4: something clicked for US in twenty nineteen, where we said

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Speaker 4: the only time to hire journalists is in the off season.

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Speaker 4: It looks like in twenty twenty there's a EUROS tournament

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Speaker 4: in the summer taking up the off season. Little did

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Speaker 4: we know that there wouldn't be a Euros twenty twenty

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty, but we thought that twenty nineteen was

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Speaker 4: probably our best shot at recruiting, and so we had

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Speaker 4: a board meeting and we basically said, we're going to

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Speaker 4: invest X million dollars and we're going to go over

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Speaker 4: to the UK and we're going to hire as many

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Speaker 4: great people as we can.

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Speaker 5: We're going to understand what garden leave.

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Speaker 4: Is and notice periods and all that stuff that make

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Speaker 4: hiring in the UK quite complicated. But within one hundred

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Speaker 4: and eight days we went from board approval to launch.

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Speaker 7: I'm Adam Hansman, co founder and president of the Athletic.

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Speaker 7: Sounds insane even to think back one hundred and eight

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Speaker 7: days to go and launch in a new country with

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Speaker 7: I think we had fifty people at launch. Everything we'd

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Speaker 7: learned in the US was launching New York and you

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Speaker 7: have a fifteen person staff, and so it sort of

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Speaker 7: you know, triple quadruple the size of anything we had

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Speaker 7: done stateside. The good news is we had a couple

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Speaker 7: of folks that we had retained that knew the talent.

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Speaker 7: Was really just a question of could we go in

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Speaker 7: convince a bunch of the best sports journalists in the

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Speaker 7: UK to buy into this thing.

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Speaker 8: I'm Akil Nambiar. I am the GM of Content Strategy

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Speaker 8: and Analytics. It's funny, before I joined the Athletic I

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Speaker 8: actually took a month log trip in Europe in the

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Speaker 8: UK and I would like read papers, I'd kind of

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Speaker 8: understand what was happening there, and I remember telling Adam

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Speaker 8: and Alex, I feel like my itch isn't scratched as

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Speaker 8: a fan there, there's something that's still left to be desired.

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Speaker 8: And a few months later, Ed Mallian, who is now

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Speaker 8: our director of Content Strategy and Analytics, he actually messaged

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Speaker 8: OUGS and said, I would love to just chat. Twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 8: we were really focused on doing things well in North America.

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Speaker 8: Twenty nineteen comes around and Adam and Alex were like,

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Speaker 8: let's think about the UK. What would it mean for

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Speaker 8: us to go over there? And it was myself and

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Speaker 8: George Krushy, who was our soccer editor at the time.

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Speaker 8: We got on the phone with Ed and I remember

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Speaker 8: texting George and I was like, this guy's instinct is

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Speaker 8: spot on, Like he just knows what will make this

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Speaker 8: business work. And from there we embarked on a week long,

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Speaker 8: just crazy trip where we met with a majority of

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Speaker 8: the writers that we ended up hiring now we talked

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Speaker 8: to them about the vision. It was just an incredible

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Speaker 8: whirlwind of an experience.

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Speaker 7: We didn't know until we got into a couple of

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Speaker 7: those first comeversations. It was sort of just an open

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Speaker 7: question was anyone going to believe us?

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Speaker 4: And our brand name at that point was fairly unknown.

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Speaker 4: Folks had done their research, didn't really know anything about

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Speaker 4: the company, and you know, we had to go in

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Speaker 4: with basic brand reputation being very low and building that up.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 4: Some of the more fun conversations were connecting the great

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Speaker 4: journalists in the UK with counterparts in the US to

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Speaker 4: just talk about how we do business and how we

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Speaker 4: treat journalists, and some of those conversations.

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Speaker 5: Were really cool. Welcome to the Hostein and Chapman podcast

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Speaker 5: on the Athletic.

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Speaker 3: This idea that real Madrid structure makes it harder in

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Speaker 3: certain ways as well.

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Speaker 5: You know, you can't you don't have a solvering wealth

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Speaker 5: fu behind you.

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Speaker 9: You don't have one very very wealthy guy like Chelsea

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Speaker 9: dug Is there ever a conversation that you had about

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Speaker 9: changing the.

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Speaker 5: Structure the real Madrid.

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Speaker 4: One of the first things we did, you know, with

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Speaker 4: some of the folks that we had brought on early

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Speaker 4: to by the top twenty people we wanted and we

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Speaker 4: created basically handmade specific pitch decks for each one of them.

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Speaker 4: It had like specific designs for them, it had apparel

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Speaker 4: with their name on it, and so we went in

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Speaker 4: and did our homework. Like those Top twenty folks, we

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Speaker 4: really did our homework and knew what they wrote, knew

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Speaker 4: how they wrote, what their strengths and opportunities at our

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Speaker 4: publication were, and so going into those meetings, you know,

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Speaker 4: really flattering the folks.

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Speaker 5: That was a really big piece.

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Speaker 4: And what we've known all along is opportunities multiply as

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Speaker 4: they're seized, and as like some of the big names

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Speaker 4: started to agree, then we were able to really scale

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Speaker 4: it out.

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Speaker 7: That day, August fifth, twenty nineteen, I believe it was

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Speaker 7: just all out everyone announcing all the writers sort of

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Speaker 7: you know, putting out their you know why joined the athletic.

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Speaker 7: It was a site to behold and we were just

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Speaker 7: glad that the site didn't break. That was another scaling

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Speaker 7: challenge was making sure we could support dot co dot UK.

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Speaker 5: All day long.

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Speaker 6: Sporting events from college to professional have been postponing events nationwide,

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Speaker 6: even postponing entire season.

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Speaker 1: This has been the craziest, most unpredictable a few days

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Speaker 1: in the history of sports suspended. Trust your eyes, what

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Speaker 1: are your eyes telling you?

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Speaker 8: No, March mad This is suspended.

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Speaker 1: Major League Baseball suspends its open er, NBA suspends its

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Speaker 1: season along with NHL season suspended.

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Speaker 8: Major sports suspend, spend suspending.

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Speaker 3: In March of twenty twenty, the pandemic hit and the

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Speaker 3: sports world would be shutting, lingering in wait for months

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Speaker 3: without anything to cover. The athletic, barely five years in,

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Speaker 3: was gaining steam and then this a complete blackout of

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Speaker 3: sports content.

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Speaker 10: Sports content.

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Speaker 4: So I was in a hotel in Los Angeles by myself,

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Speaker 4: just ordered dinner, and I'm watching whatever's on the hotel

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Speaker 4: TV and I my slack and it's blowing up and

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Speaker 4: we've got Tony Jones in Utah breaking news that they're

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Speaker 4: just going to shut the game down.

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Speaker 11: Well, I just saw a point Snyder point to the

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Speaker 11: locker room and they're taking these players off the floor.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 5: Wow, It's just.

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Speaker 10: A real eerie silence in the arena.

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Speaker 2: You just never see something like you saw tonight, And

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Speaker 2: I think that this is a night that would all

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Speaker 2: remember for a long time.

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Speaker 4: We know very little at that moment in time, and

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Speaker 4: I'm sitting in this hotel room as the CEO of

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Speaker 4: a sports media company with six hundred people around the world,

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Speaker 4: and the first thing that just comes to mind is

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Speaker 4: we have to get our people home. It was pretty scary,

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Speaker 4: you know, first and foremost for our people and potentially

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Speaker 4: harms way at that moment, right and we're just thinking,

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Speaker 4: what what what happened?

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Speaker 5: Happened happening?

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Speaker 2: It was difficult, I mean, let's be clear about that.

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Speaker 2: Marcus Thompson, senior columnist, The Athletic. It was tough. One

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Speaker 2: of my strengths as reporter is being able to like

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Speaker 2: go up to a guy and get them to tell me,

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Speaker 2: talk to me and have a conversation, especially a unique one.

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Speaker 2: So being stripped of that was really tough. And you

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Speaker 2: know there had to be an extra level of creativity.

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Speaker 1: My name is David Aldridge. I am the editor in

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Speaker 1: chief of the Washington DC Bureau of the Athletic. It

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Speaker 1: was hard, and I give our group an incredible amount

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Speaker 1: of credit for coming up with different ideas well. Our

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Speaker 1: subscribers want to read about sports bars that have been

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Speaker 1: impacted by it, as it turned out, yeah they did.

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Speaker 1: Whether are they going to want to read about mascots?

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Speaker 1: As it turns out, yeah they would. You know, I

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Speaker 1: wrote a story about all the credentials that I've saved

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Speaker 1: over the years. I didn't think anybody would read it.

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Speaker 5: A lot of people did.

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Speaker 8: There's like two big realizations that I had. One is

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Speaker 8: just the creativity that we have across the newsroom. We

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Speaker 8: had a channel called Let's Get Weird, and you know,

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Speaker 8: people across the company would throw ideas in there of

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Speaker 8: things that we could write about, and that was cool

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Speaker 8: to see that response to that energy was cool to see.

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Speaker 8: The Other thing that was amazing for me to see

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Speaker 8: is the way the subscribers, you know, wanted an escape,

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Speaker 8: and you know, although there were no sports like happening

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Speaker 8: at all, they loved what we were doing and one

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Speaker 8: thing I didn't touch on earlier, but when I left Facebook,

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Speaker 8: I knew that I wanted to work at a place

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Speaker 8: that could be the best part of someone's day. We're

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Speaker 8: lucky enough, and credit to our writers and audio folks

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Speaker 8: and just all the creative folks in the company. You know,

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Speaker 8: we produced something that can be the best part of

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Speaker 8: someone's day. And I think through the pandemic, when things

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Speaker 8: got really dark is when you saw how much it's

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Speaker 8: meant to our subscribers.

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Speaker 5: So it gave you a bunch of hope.

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Speaker 2: Through that time, we on our Warrior staff, we had

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Speaker 2: a life through a four people were we all knew

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Speaker 2: what we were doing. We all had our own little

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Speaker 2: avenues and we could kind of work with each other

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Speaker 2: and create a synergy. To me, that's what got us through,

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Speaker 2: and the fact that there were really no limits, you know,

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Speaker 2: everything was on the table. We could be as creative

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Speaker 2: and lacking and weird as we wanted to be.

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Speaker 3: There was a period of time we had no content,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean.

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Speaker 4: I think Adam can touch on that, yeah, but maybe

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Speaker 4: I'll start with some of the things that we believe

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Speaker 4: are positive coming out of the pandemic. Is really looking

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Speaker 4: at a wider talent pool, a more diverse talent pool,

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Speaker 4: a bigger pool to pull from when you're not just

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Speaker 4: looking for people in the Bay Area, for example. And

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Speaker 4: so when we've removed that constraint, we start to just

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Speaker 4: operate at another level. We're able to bring on folks

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Speaker 4: in Canada and Australia, you know, any city or town

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Speaker 4: in the United States, and that really opens us up

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Speaker 4: to creating a much more diverse and inclusive company. You know,

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Speaker 4: with that comes challenges, right, With that comes communication challenges,

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Speaker 4: especially for a startup. We're not a company with twenty

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Speaker 4: five years of momentum, right the sort of the serendipity

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Speaker 4: of like you know, early days startups, two people chatting

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Speaker 4: in an elevator and suddenly you've got a feature idea.

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Speaker 5: I think that's the challenge.

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Speaker 4: Going forward is how do you marry some of those

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Speaker 4: really amazing aspects of a geographically disparate employee base, you know,

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Speaker 4: with really collaborative, conducive behaviors and that that's like the

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Speaker 4: best companies in the world are going to figure that out.

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Speaker 5: And so, you know, challenge accepted on our side, for sure.

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Speaker 7: I went to my first live sporting event last night

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Speaker 7: for the first time since twenty nineteen, and.

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Speaker 5: You just remember that feeling.

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Speaker 7: And I think a lot of people are going to

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Speaker 7: experience that over the upcoming summer and fall and what

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Speaker 7: we used to say, fall in love with the sports

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Speaker 7: page again and sort of fall in love with the

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Speaker 7: sports again. And the games aren't the same, like what

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Speaker 7: we can admit that without fans and seats, but you

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Speaker 7: know that interest isn't.

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Speaker 5: Going the way going the way going the way going.

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Speaker 3: The way going going.

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Speaker 5: You know interesting, you know.

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Speaker 2: You know what's interesting. Like the moment I took the

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Speaker 2: job and started working, it was immediate that it was

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Speaker 2: the right move, Like there really was no period of

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Speaker 2: a period of uncertainty. I met with them, we went

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Speaker 2: had orientation, and we sat in an office in San

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Speaker 2: Francisco on Jesse Street, and just sitting in there talking

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Speaker 2: to them, I was like, this was it. I actually

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Speaker 2: felt a little I felt I just felt so vulnerable.

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Speaker 2: I was thinking like, wow, if the newspaper would have

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Speaker 2: made an incredible pitch to me, I probably would have

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Speaker 2: turned this down, Like I would have been nuts, right,

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Speaker 2: just because it was such a drastic change and I

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Speaker 2: had been at the newspaper for eighteen years. I just

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Speaker 2: felt very vulnerable, like I almost didn't get this right.

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Speaker 2: Like if they would have just been better about it

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Speaker 2: and sold me on some kind of dream I would

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Speaker 2: have I would have taken it anyway.

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Speaker 5: At first, was like, this is it.

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Speaker 2: This is exactly what I wanted to do. This is

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Speaker 2: exactly how I envisioned it.

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Speaker 9: Welcome to the Basketbuds edition of The Athletic NBA Show.

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Speaker 5: Podcast on the Athletic Podcast Network. I'm Zach Harper.

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Speaker 9: I think for me, there were a couple of things. One,

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Speaker 9: it was people that I trusted, and then just a

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Speaker 9: lot of people I knew and respected were signing up

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Speaker 9: and getting hired to be a part of the Athletic

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Speaker 9: And the prevailing thought from people I knew who already

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Speaker 9: worked there was this place is supportive in a way

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Speaker 9: that no other place they've worked at is supportive. And

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Speaker 9: to me, it was kind of the opposite of most

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Speaker 9: places I had been before, because a lot of those

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Speaker 9: situations were toxic, and this one felt like it was

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Speaker 9: going to be supportive, and that was just different to me.

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Speaker 1: I'll put our group against anybody, anybody's, any newspaper, any

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Speaker 1: TV network. I'll put our group against anybody. There's just

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Speaker 1: so much content, you know. We've got these really talented

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Speaker 1: people that are writing about all these all these teams

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Speaker 1: and all these leagues, and you can't keep up with it.

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Speaker 1: And that's why it's gonna work, because for what you're

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Speaker 1: asked to pay.

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Speaker 5: For for all of that a month. Look, I'm biased.

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Speaker 5: I work here, but you.

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Speaker 1: Tell me where are you gonna get this kind of

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Speaker 1: content anywhere else? Yeah?

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Speaker 5: Maybe Netflix? I mean yeah.

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Speaker 10: Anthony Slater, Warriors writer at the Athletic Bay Area, I

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Speaker 10: remember very early on in the Athletic being like, you

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Speaker 10: know what, I can just marinate. I can sit in

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Speaker 10: the locker room pregame. Yeah, all the other beat writers

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Speaker 10: can go run back to their computers. No, I got

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Speaker 10: to get in the locker room. I got to go

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Speaker 10: try to get extra stuff postgame. I can wait as

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Speaker 10: long as I want. If I have to not turn

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Speaker 10: in a story until the morning, it's okay with them

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Speaker 10: as long as it's a good story. Because there is

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Speaker 10: no deadline, and like deadline is just kind of like

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Speaker 10: a word that gets thrown around in the difference between

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Speaker 10: print and online. But it's like it's like a lifestyle change.

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Speaker 10: It made my work better and my life just just

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Speaker 10: a lot easier.

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Speaker 6: To be honest, when you had in your mind what

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Speaker 6: the Athletic could be and compare that to what it

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Speaker 6: is now, what are some of the big differences, and

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Speaker 6: also what are some of the values that you've held

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Speaker 6: true to with the company that you wanted it to be.

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Speaker 4: It's a really good question. It's something that we think

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Speaker 4: about a lot. Some of the things that are similar

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Speaker 4: to what we have talked about is great people, high

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Speaker 4: quality journalism, great user experience, few if any ads, and

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Speaker 4: a product that really serves a specific sports fan that

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Speaker 4: I talked about right now.

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Speaker 5: Sort of on the edges is where it's very different.

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Speaker 4: I think Adam and I started the company thinking it

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Speaker 4: would be primarily like five thirty eight.

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Speaker 5: Five thirty eight meets grant Land. That was it.

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Speaker 4: I don't think we appreciated at the time news breaking,

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Speaker 4: investigative reporting, or just the sort of quiet excellence of

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Speaker 4: a beat reporter who knows everything about their team right.

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Speaker 4: I don't think those things were in internalized in twenty

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Speaker 4: and sixteen. That took years and years of us getting

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Speaker 4: to know what makes the best sports writers in the

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Speaker 4: world tick.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, one thing I'm really proud that we've never compromised

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Speaker 7: on quality. I think that's just in our DNA as founders,

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Speaker 7: as sports fans.

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Speaker 5: That like, we know when something doesn't meet that bar.

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Speaker 7: And I think the evolution has really been kind of

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Speaker 7: what Alex was saying, like, not only do we listen

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Speaker 7: to our customers, we listen to the people that are

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Speaker 7: you know, ultimately serving those customers, which in our case

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Speaker 7: is team of journalists who are coming from these you know,

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Speaker 7: other publications where they're just miserable and they're not doing

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Speaker 7: good work. And just in a life principle, when you

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Speaker 7: do something that you love and then you're proud of, like,

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Speaker 7: chances are others are going to find it attractive and interesting.

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Speaker 7: Like we've never been a tops down place of like

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Speaker 7: here's what excellent reporting looks like, or here's what a

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Speaker 7: good story looks like.

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Speaker 5: We've sort of just.

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Speaker 7: Known how to like spot quality and quality people more

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Speaker 7: importantly and really embrace that.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: I definitely did not anticipate we'd be as big as

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Speaker 7: we have grown, as quickly as we've as we've grown,

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Speaker 7: but you just.

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Speaker 5: Learn how to scale into that. Still learning most important.

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Speaker 11: Alone and one day is done, we'll.

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Speaker 8: Take I think kind of cracking through to you know,

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Speaker 8: that next level. It's something that takes time because as

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Speaker 8: people build more and more affinity for what we do,

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Speaker 8: I think that's the thing that then translates to a

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Speaker 8: brand and then allows you to compete with these larger companies.

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Speaker 8: And you know, given the fact that we were started

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Speaker 8: in twenty fifteen and we can even put our name

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Speaker 8: alongside some of these incredible places, like.

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Speaker 5: It makes me proud.

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Speaker 8: And again it's a testament to just everyone that we

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Speaker 8: have here. One other thing I like to say is

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Speaker 8: although the brand is new, any of our writers or

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Speaker 8: producers or editors, you all have been doing this for

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Speaker 8: a really long time. So it's like you all have

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Speaker 8: been decades training to make this moment happen. And you know,

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Speaker 8: we've found a recipe that works and you bring great

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Speaker 8: people together. Although the brand is new, it's just a

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Speaker 8: testament to the work that's happened by our writers, producers,

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Speaker 8: journalists beforehand. And yeah, I think that's what's gotten us

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Speaker 8: to be so successful today.

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Speaker 1: I think it's liberating because it allows good writers and

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Speaker 1: good reporters to really kind of put their individual stamp

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Speaker 1: on a team. It allows them to kind of go

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Speaker 1: through their contexts to come up with good stories that

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Speaker 1: make sense for the team that they're covering. You know,

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Speaker 1: whether it's a feature on a coach or it's a

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Speaker 1: staticical analysis of a player, you can kind of go

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Speaker 1: deeper and get beyond the surface and get beyond the

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Speaker 1: notebook about hamstring pulls and you know he's going to

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Speaker 1: be out seven to ten days.

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Speaker 5: Nope.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't ask anybody to subscribe to that. What we're

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Speaker 1: offering is something really different, and I think that really

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Speaker 1: is liberating for our writers.

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Speaker 5: Trust your eyes?

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Speaker 1: What are your eyes telling you? Would you look at

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Speaker 1: a game?

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Speaker 10: What are you seeing?

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Speaker 3: This episode is just one of many podcasts included in

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Speaker 3: the Small Business Pod Friends presented by Dell Technologies, a

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Speaker 3: podcast conference to get inspiration on topics like fundraising, building

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Speaker 3: teams are managing a business in our current environment from

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00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 3: top podcasts like Mandy Woodriff and Tiffany Eleish, Ground Ambition

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00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 3: and Linked Here Biscuits and Gretchen from Happier with Gretchen Rubens.

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Speaker 3: Is it Dell Technologies potphres Technology. I'm Jade Hoy for

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Speaker 3: the Athletic Podcast Network,