New York Times to Buy The Athletic for $550 Million

The New York Times is buying sports website The Athletic, according to several reports. The deal puts the NYT in the top tier of sports media companies, joining the ranks of ESPN and CBS Sports, GoLocalProv reports.

"The New York Times Co. has agreed to acquire subscription sports site The Athletic in a deal valued at around $550 million," the website quotes a person familiar with the deal. NYT has a goal of reaching 10 million subscribers by 2025, up from its 8.3 million print and digital subscribers, as of Sept. 30, 2021.

While The Athletic website is said to have more than one million subscribers, it reportedly lost $41 million last year. It had been seeking a purchaser since last fall for as much as $710 million.

The New York Times purchased About.com in 2005, reportedly for $410 million. At that time, NYT said it had 13 million monthly users and that the About.com deal would make it the 12th largest site on the Internet.