The Athletic

As of 2022, The Athletic provided local coverage in 47 cities and regions of North America as well as coverage in the United Kingdom. It includes the 32 National Football League teams, the 30 Major League Baseball teams, the 30 National Basketball Association teams, and 23 of the 32 National Hockey League teams.

The Athletic was founded by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, former coworkers at subscription-based fitness company Strava, with the mission of producing "smarter coverage for die-hard fans." The company was built as an alternative to the struggling ad-supported models. The Athletic relies on subscription revenue, not advertising revenue, to support the business. Mather and Hansmann believed sports fans would be willing to pay for good reporting and writing, a clean app and no ads. At the time, a few newspapers were trying out paywalls, but the common industry view was that information on the internet needed to be free.

As part of Y Combinator's summer 2016 batch, the site originally launched in Chicago in January 2016, with Jon Greenberg serving as the founding editor, along with Sahadev Sharma (Cubs) and Scott Powers (Blackhawks). Greenberg and Powers previously worked at ESPN Chicago, while Sharma left Baseball Prospectus' Cubs vertical to join the website.

In October 2016, The Athletic expanded to a second city, Toronto, to focus on Maple Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays coverage. The Athletic hired James Mirtle as editor-in-chief for Toronto. Mirtle had spent over a decade as a sportswriter at The Globe and Mail before joining The Athletic. A third city, Cleveland, launched in March 2017, with Jason Lloyd as editor-in-chief. The Athletic continued city expansion to Detroit in June 2017 with the hiring of Craig Custance from ESPN as editor-in-chief.

In August 2017, the site launched in the San Francisco-area market with long-time San Jose Mercury News writers Tim Kawakami as editor-in-chief and Marcus Thompson as columnist. The Athletic also added national coverage with new writers including baseball veteran Ken Rosenthal, shortly after Fox Sports eliminated its entire writing staff, as well as college basketball standout Seth Davis and college football institution Stewart Mandel. Mandel led the launch of the national college football section, "The All-American", at the end of August. The Athletic expanded into Philadelphia, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the rest of Canada in September 2017 bringing local coverage to 15 US and Canadian pro sports markets. …

Investors, media executives, and reporters who don't work for the Athletic all express skepticism about the business. But almost no one will share these sentiments publicly. Who wants to be seen badmouthing one of the only places still hiring journalists? Bringing on writers for top dollar and freeing them from chasing clicks is admirable, the doubters say, but it's no way to make money.

The Athletic has raised a total of $139.5 million over five rounds. The first major funding was provided by Courtside Ventures, which provided $2.3 million in seed funding in Jan 2017. In July 2017, the company raised another $5.4 million in Series A funding also led by Courtside Ventures. In March 2018, the company announced a $20 million third round of funding led by Evolution Media. Mather reported that this money would be invested into expanding coverage to new cities and increasing the number of writers from the then staff of 120. The Athletic raised another $40 million in a Series C funding round in October 2018, co-led by Founders Fund and Bedrock Capital. The money will be used to invest in expanding teams focused on audience, data and editorial teams, subscriptions, podcasts and video.

As of August 2019, The Athletic had 600,000 paying subscribers with an 80% retention rate year-over-year. Most of its subscribers, 60%, follow sports teams in two or more cities. In September 2020, The Athletic announced one million global subscribers, as well as expansion into additional breaking news content formats.

The Athletic has published multiple investigations regarding workplace misconduct, sexual abuse, and other transgressions in the sports community. In 2018, Athletic journalist Tim Cato published an in-depth report on allegations regarding workplace misconduct within the Dallas Mavericks organization. The report detailed how high-ranking members within the Mavericks organization ignored and tacitly approved of financial misconduct and mental abuse. In March 2021, The Athletic published an investigation regarding sexual misconduct and abuse at Louisiana State University (LSU). In the report, Brody Miller detailed the rampant sexual misconduct that was present at all levels of the LSU organization, and interviews with former players helped support an investigation conducted by law firm Husch Blackwell.

In September 2021, The Athletic released a report detailing the gross sexual misconduct of association football coach Paul Riley in the NWSL. The report detailed Riley's sexual abuse of several players, namely Sinead Farrelly and Meleana Shim, as well as an unnamed additional player, while coaching at Portland Thorns FC. The report also revealed that the allegations, first reported to the club in 2016, were partially responsible for the decision not to renew his contract in Portland. Riley, however, immediately assumed a new coaching position within the NWSL. The NWSL, and Riley's current team, responded with no comment. Paul Riley denied all allegations. Riley was subsequently dismissed, and the relevant soccer bodies (NWSL, FIFA and the United States Soccer Federation) launched investigations.

The Athletic produces over 80 exclusive podcasts. The lineup features a mix of daily, weekly, and league-specific shows covering major sports. In August 2025, the brand signed a deal with Acast, with Acast serving as The Athletic's exclusive sales partner. That same month, podcast The Sports Gossip Show joined The Athletic's network.