Texsox Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 27 minutes ago, Quin said: f***, Schiff got laid off. Went to college with him. But also, there you go. The 76ers and Nets weren't worth keeping beat writers? Edit; Also...there's several coastal teams on there Tex. The Mariners, Sharks, aforementioned Sixers and Nets. And in Toronto, you'd imagine the Maple Leafs were worth keeping a beat writer. Same for the Cowboys. Seems like there is more than just how well the team is doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chitownsportsfan Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 3 hours ago, Balta1701 said: Except for the part where The Athletic was sold to The NY Times for $500 million, making their founders fabulously wealthy. A spectacularly poor decision by the NY Times as it turns out, which is now leading to cutting what made the Athletic relatively valuable in the first place. My prediction is that the Athletic will slowly go the way of SB Nation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyyle23 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Just now, chitownsportsfan said: A spectacularly poor decision by the NY Times as it turns out, which is now leading to cutting what made the Athletic relatively valuable in the first place. My prediction is that the Athletic will slowly go the way of SB Nation. Oh that’s already happening, this set of cuts was the shot across the brow to all of them. All of the big names will get their money though, for sure 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Allen Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 55 minutes ago, Kyyle23 said: Oh that’s already happening, this set of cuts was the shot across the brow to all of them. All of the big names will get their money though, for sure Yes. It's like the terminal disease has now been found. It's just a matter of time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 2 hours ago, Texsox said: Seems like there is more than just how well the team is doing. The Mariners/Rodriguez were one of the biggest stories in baseball last year. Acquiring AJ Pollock probably doomed them by association with the Sox lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Look at Ray Ray Run Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 5 hours ago, Texsox said: They are also reassigning twenty writers as part of this restructuring. He's not one of those either. Are those other reporters just better at adapting? Yes, the poor national draw of the Sox is part of it, but looking at some of the other writers laid off, salaries had a role. If management fired teams instead of looking at names and salaries they are even bigger idiots than the Time Warner group that bought AOL. Not sure what you're last point means, organizations absolutely will downsize teams without considering talent. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Look at Ray Ray Run Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 4 hours ago, Texsox said: No. I'm trying to explain it's not as easy as the Sox suck so we lost national coverage. The Pirates lost their beat writer and they are in first place. Plus I see two issues. A. Sox lose beat writer (that's on the team not being interesting nationally, and historically true) B. A really good writer lost his job when others were reassigned. Part A makes sense. But it goes beyond the standings, look at the Pirates. Part B only makes sense to me if other factors, specifically salary, comes into play. Again, looking at the other writers fired. The pirates are a tiny market. The people who fired James have very likely never read a single piece he wrote and could not pick him out in a crowd of 2. He was cut based primarily on engagement which is absolutely team driven. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeC Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 3 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: Not sure what you're last point means, bad organizations absolutely will downsize teams without considering talent. fixed your post.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyyle23 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Just now, JoeC said: fixed your post.... Dodgers have purged a lot of big names over the last couple years. It’s all of them, it just depends on the finances at the time 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Look at Ray Ray Run Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Just now, JoeC said: fixed your post.... I'd say it's 99% of the corporate world - especially any that answer or are guided by a board. We just laid off 2% of our workforce and the selection process didn't even involve directors/partners or manager of given laid off employees. Guideance comes from the top, you analyze some sectors on profitability and projections, and you trim the worst performers where possible and good performers where there's no other options. When you scale large enough, this is typically how reductions of force work. I've now been involved on two. It's a horribly broken process but it's also the reality of how this works in most places. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeC Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 4 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: I'd say it's 99% of the corporate world - especially any that answer or are guided by a board. We just laid off 2% of our workforce and the selection process didn't even involve directors/partners or manager of given laid off employees. Guideance comes from the top, you analyze some sectors on profitability and projections, and you trim the worst performers where possible and good performers where there's no other options. When you scale large enough, this is typically how reductions of force work. I've now been involved on two. It's a horribly broken process but it's also the reality of how this works in most places. That sounds like it's pretty congruent with what my understanding of how it's SUPPOSED to go is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Look at Ray Ray Run Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 14 minutes ago, JoeC said: That sounds like it's pretty congruent with what my understanding of how it's SUPPOSED to go is. Problem is, if you manage well and are effective in your segment, there might not be enough weak performers. In that case, you're cutting based on organizational metrics as opposed to individual metrics. This happens often times, especially when you're layoffs are segment based. Baseball beats were likely not profitable, they trimmed the markets performing the worst currently and projection wise. Someone already said it here, but this type of analytics leads to bias coverage and ignoring large swaths of people in the name of efficiency. It's dumb and short sighted, but then again so was them paying more than everyone else in the market with no true pathway to profitability. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominikk85 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 The Athletic is a great project but I have always thought that they must be losing money due to their huge staff of high profile writers. I think they were hoping they could drive up subscriptions enough to essentially monopolize the market and it paying off but maybe it wasn't quite working and the NYT needs to save money to make it work. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: The pirates are a tiny market. The people who fired James have very likely never read a single piece he wrote and could not pick him out in a crowd of 2. He was cut based primarily on engagement which is absolutely team driven. I'm gonna guess Schiff has pretty good traffic with the Nets. But you're right, they probably saw a big drop and were like "this writer isn't performing as strongly as he used to." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 3 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: Not sure what you're last point means, organizations absolutely will downsize teams without considering talent. The point was if they just looked at which teams (NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB) to cut and didn't look at who the writers were, they would have had no idea what the cost savings would be. Not teams as in the XYZ Project Team (which I agree happens) I'm assuming that they looked at more than just the won lost record. Plus national engagement has always been lower than NY, Boston, LA, type teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 The team really needs to incorporate a rugby pre game haka to drive engagement numbers. Honestly why do we care some NY media outlet decided to overlook the Sox . . . again and again and again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lip Man 1 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 3 minutes ago, Texsox said: The team really needs to incorporate a rugby pre game haka to drive engagement numbers. Honestly why do we care some NY media outlet decided to overlook the Sox . . . again and again and again. Well in this case the writer in question was providing good information on the team and doing the fan base an excellent service. You think Merkin is going to do what Fegan did? 😆 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Allen Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 6 hours ago, Texsox said: Seems like there is more than just how well the team is doing. Another thing is it’s a lot easier to adjust coverage when the team is out of season. The got rid of the White Sox beat writer in the middle of the season. When does that ever happen.? The Teibume went without a Sox beat writer for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 11 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said: Well in this case the writer in question was providing good information on the team and doing the fan base an excellent service. You think Merkin is going to do what Fegan did? 😆 I think hundreds of fans will be disappointed in The Athletic's White Sox coverage. About the same number that would click on a link, read White Sox and think s%*#, I thought this was a Boston article. Hopefully someone picks him up or he starts a pay per read blog. It will be interesting how many Chicago subscribers cancel. Will not getting Sox coverage be enough to also give up Bears, Bulls, Hawks, Cubs coverage? I had about ten follows. If they analyzed my engagement Sox coverage was probably only 15% of my total but I read 100% of Sox material. I joined everyone in cancelling. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Just now, Dick Allen said: Another thing is it’s a lot easier to adjust coverage when the team is out of season. The got rid of the White Sox beat writer in the middle of the season. When does that ever happen.? The Teibume went without a Sox beat writer for a while. It happens when they have to lay off staff to stop losing money. We're the worst big market franchise in baseball. Kansas City and Miami are just more engaging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 3 minutes ago, Texsox said: It happens when they have to lay off staff to stop losing money. We're the worst big market franchise in baseball. Kansas City and Miami are just more engaging. KC draws much bigger local ratings... just out of a much smaller pot. Oakland definitely has to be worse... but then, last night even "negative attendance" with Sell the Team got a ton of attention and at least their ultimate landing spot is interesting for two separate markets. Detroit you can argue... but same story with KC, and their rebuild hasn't failed yet until Mize/Skubal/Manning are defined. And challenging to monetize any interest back in Cuba...maybe if they had a Spanish translation of Fegan's work as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 Also, the KC Star, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Detroit Free Press and Cleveland Plain Dealer will always have baseball beat writers until they die off completely as media endeavors...that's the reverse advantage of Chicago market size. Those teams don't get swallowed up by the Cubs. The Royals will always have their unique identity, even if the Chiefs win every other Super Bowl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrockway Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 (edited) I have an Athletic subscription because I subscribe to the NY Times and it's a really really bad publication. It used to be heralded as 'smart', longform investigative sports journalism, but it's fallen into the same trap as as pretty much every other 'journalistic outlet' on the internet: repost things you read on twitter, repeat the things your 'sources' (agents with ulterior motives) tell you, focus exclusively on spectacle and drama because storylines are more important than the sport itself. I don't think that described Fegan so he had to go. Either that or having a White Sox specific page wasn't profitable enough and his $60k a year salary was too much to stomach. Maybe he can go work for the Reinsdorf propaganda outlet Stadium, some Bulls guy (Rob Schaefer) was recently fired by NBCSN and now works for the Bulls...kinda sad, he was really good, now he has to be a yesman. Edited June 14, 2023 by nrockway 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 I hope Fegan moves on to politics or some hard news area. I would enjoy his White House coverage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted June 14, 2023 Share Posted June 14, 2023 1 minute ago, Texsox said: I hope Fegan moves on to politics or some hard news area. I would enjoy his White House coverage. Better to have a career like Joe Posnanski, but Fegan's (at least for now) lacks the national name/brand recognition... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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