It’s kind of wild, it’s obviously new ownership of the site, but “beat coverage of every team in every sport” was the PREMISE of the site! They murdered dozens of local sports pages by poaching the guys!
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I mean the odds were probably like 100-1 that the NYTimes was going to hire a beat writer to cover one of the worst teams in the league right?
The initial plan was definitely the city sites (Toronto, Chicago, Detroit) but they got away from that pretty quickly when they just started hiring big twitter following national writers I’d say (i.e. like their entire CFB coverage).
Mostly just to say, they got away from the idea before the sale and it started in hiring before cutting. Only has been emphasized now obviously.
Cash the future! Interesting. Do they still have beat writers for every NBA team? That surprises me.
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#canconfirm
I think the only team that doesn’t have a beat writer is the OKC Thunder.
Also FWIW, Detroit has one of the largest subscriber bases in the NBA.
Justin Thind for Pistons beat writer!!!
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They did last year
How does one measure the Pistons subscriber base of The Athletic?
I would assume that the Detroit area in general has a larger subscriber base because they actually launched a “The Athletic Detroit” site which didn’t happen in some other cities.
Generally though, kind of feels like The Athletic is a good story of the difference between a “good business” … like a regional Athletic site versus a start up (need hockey stick growth and new membership growth).
They hacked the start up idea with “Why I’m joining The Athletic” but the goal is always the transaction in that case.
JEIII said the analytics from the Athletics said it FWIW. 
That would be pretty surprising given the empty crowds at games and the complete lack of interest in metro Detroit from literally anyone besides diehard Pistons fans. Wouldn’t think there would be enough diehards to carry them above other franchises that get way more general fan interest.
I’m guessing if the analytics say that then it’s just a large Detroit subscriber base who is interested in all of the other local teams and will check in on the Pistons simply because they can. I can’t imagine most of the subscribers are there solely or even primarily for the Pistons coverage
Contrast it with the Tigers this season. Their stadium is almost empty bc they were bad. They sold out the stadium once they were good late in the season. I wouldn’t conflate crowd size with interest tbh. The Pistons hasn’t had a reason to show why it’s worth investing their time and money to go to downtown Detroit for a game.
Going to work era regularly had one of the best crowd in the league. The interest always has been there. If the Pistons becomes a contender, you’ll see an uptick of crowd size
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I don’t disagree that if they are good, the fans will come back. But they haven’t been good in 15 years so we are basing it off of the current interest, which is next to zero. It’s not just crowd size, but that is one data point. They rarely get discussed on local radio. They don’t get national TV games. They don’t have a superstar. There is a niche group online that talks Pistons, but it’s not nearly the same as the Lions, UM, MSU and Tigers. Red Wings also get more interest locally. Pistons are unquestionably the least popular local team. And I consider myself to be in the group of people that actually is very interested in the Pistons so I am not a hater, just keeping it real.
And your point about the Tigers I think only further enhances the argument. Interest in the Tigers was low for most of the season and the recent interest only came about because they got hot and gave the fans something to be excited about. Crowd size had a direct correlation to overall interest in the team. Pistons haven’t given the fans something to be excited about in a very very long time so the present day interest is very low. There is no indication that the Pistons will suddenly be good this year. There is no clear light at the end of the tunnel so people don’t have hope and they check out and focus their attention on other things.
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I go to a lot of Pistons games. The crowd is always pretty good. Much more so than the team deserved the last few years.
I go to 2-4 games a year (except for one year where I had a 10 game ticket package and got to see them go 1-9 vs actual good teams) and yeah attendance is strangely pretty solid ever since the move to downtown. I very rarely go to a game and feel that it’s depressingly empty (like the Palace was ALWAYS in the post Billups era). I think the downtown move made it more accessible for casuals to go on a whim
I’m sure any “data” suggesting that Pistons subscriptions are higher at the Athletic than elsewhere is flawed because it is just “Detroit area” subscriptions capturing Lions, Tigers, Wings, and Michigan people. That being said, you can select your “favorites” on the Athletic website so there might be some data associated with how many subscribers have added the Pistons to their news feed relative to other NBA teams. Still an imperfect data set to measure fandom and traffic - but potentially what they would consider when filling this role.
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What if I favorite’d the Pistons from a “rubber-knecking a car-crash” aspect
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all the subs count the same, baby!
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I’d say you’re certainly getting your money’s worth then
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