The Athletic: Sports News Reviews

Let me start by saying that The Athletic is one of my favorite sites as both a sportswriter and a fan. There’s a lot of quality content on the site that I have no problem paying for.

The problem I have is with the experience that comes with TheAthletic . For the recurring cost, I’d expect something that works more smoothly and loads articles properly. Ever since the most recent redesign of TheAthletic , it has been freezing on the intro screen at least half of the times that I open it. After getting through those freezes, TheAthletic will kick me back to the home page whenever I switch to one of my team filters. When loaded, the stories themselves are generally slow and unresponsive, which further hurts the experience.

There are other minor complaints, such as not having articles load in TheAthletic after being clicked on from newsletters or social media feeds, as well as not being taken to the comment that’s made on your thread when you get a notification, leading you to try to figure out which story you commented on in the first place, which typically doesn’t have the response to your comment anyways. (Desktop is always ahead of TheAthletic in terms of comment threads being updated). Overall, the quality of TheAthletic is nowhere near the value of free sports apps, which is a shame, because the writing is great.

I am a die hard Colts fan living in Texas, and as you could imagine finding good content for my team outside of Twitter was consistently a challenge. I’ve been following Holder on Twitter for years and he remains my favorite writer, so when he moved to the Athletic I was ecstatic. The subscription was a no brainer for me. He and Zak Keefer provide great insight, and I love their podcast. I know with print losing some steam people get annoyed with pay walls and premium content, but it’s just a sign of the items. I am very grateful for the content I get as a Colts fan living in Cowboy country. As long as Holder and Keefer are with the Athletic you can count on my subscription. If you are a fan who follows a team that is out of your market, the Athletic is essential to get the kind of content you would otherwise miss. My only qualm would be these discounts only new subscribers get, I get the business model but spread the love and reward current subscribers every now and then.

Why doesn’t The Athletic have any of their affiliated writers actually cover the actual play of the most recent game?? Yesterday’s Giants game vs St. Louis had no articles that I could find that actually talked about the game itself. To me, the benefit of having writers at the games is to provide some insight on what happened and to offer opinions on how well or poorly the team performed. We can’t always watch or listen to the game. So why don’t you tell us about it?

The other issue I have with the writers is their approach to writing about sports in general. I’m assuming they’re all professional sports journalists. Why do they all write their “columns” like they’re writing an episode script for a low budget sitcom. The lame and juvenile “jokes” that seem to be more important to them than whatever topic they’re trying to cover! This style of writing seems to permeate all aspects of sports whether it’s the Giants’ hideous new uniforms , the “A’s” phantom stadium
plans, or the 49ers quarterback competition. A little humor is often appropriate and/or enlightening to a particular topic, but it shouldn’t be a template that dominates the article, with a few facts or opinions thrown in to fill out the script.
The Athletic is supposed to be a sports forum. Leave the comedy to Hollywood.

I love the Athletic and have been a subscriber for over a year now. The content is incredible and I am consistently amazed by the interactivity of the readers and the columnists. Unlike the comment sections in other sites like ESPN, or Bleacher Report, the thread underneath articles or in the “Discussion” section of TheAthletic is almost always intelligent and on topic - a throughly refreshing atmosphere.

The recent update I like a lot in terms of aesthetics, though as a alumnus of the University of Virginia, as well as a fan of Cleveland sports, I wish there was still a way to look at all the teams you follow in a grid, as swiping between the three “Cavaliers” streams (NCAAF, NCAABB, NBA) is frustrating. All three teams share the same name and there is nothing to distinguish which is which.

Otherwise a truly excellent app and publication. I rave about it to my friends ceaselessly. Keep up the good work! (A special shoutout to the Cleveland writers, your work is phenomenal)

I enjoy several columnists on here but navigating otherwise is not great. I like a single overall front page with the top stories in all sports, regardless if I follow that sport or league. Still haven’t found a place to see that.

With help from support a while back, I found where the standings are but it is annoying how far deep you have to dig to get to them. First you have to go to scores, then scroll over among your favorites to pick your league, then choose standings. Also, here in baseball playoff time there is no indication of where a series is and who is leading, it only shows the scores. I’m basically done with baseball for the year because i hate all teams that remain but I like to see who has the series lead while I’m on here looking at other stuff. I have to leave and go elsewhere so if it is on here, it’s too hard to find. After this trial is over I’ll have to justify if it’s worth full price for the few people I really like but as a paid total sports source, there are other free choices I’ll lean on.

Classic reading experience as if you were reading a column or article in a journal/newspaper. Every article felt very insightful and well thought. It made me alter my perception about certain aspects and gave me a new perspective for them. They also give regular updates on the latest happenings in the world of sports as an added bonus. I feel interested in reading the articles from TheAthletic, unlike some others where I just scroll to view the bolded text and ignore the rest. Don’t feel there’s much to improve here, just maybe adding some graphics or timelines to see how many sports have evolved. For example, in football, the evolution from the late 20th century to the modern era, what changes have come by and how they would’ve affected the games in the previous era. Just a thought, but overall I like the experience and plan to continue reading The Athletic for as long as I follow sports.

Love everything about the service, content/articles, and the lack of ads or gossip pieces. That being said, TheAthletic isn’t user friendly and would benefit from an update or two. For example, you can’t reorder the “following thread,” which means you might want to read something about your fav NFL team or whoever, but then to check out generally league news you might have to scroll past every other category before landing on the NFL. Another example, exiting an article requires pushing the “x” located bottom left of screen, whereas most of the iPhone world places this function in the top left of screen (more of a hassle when using a tablet). Minor issues, but they do make it feel clunky or disjointed.

First world problems for sure, but it’s still a pain, especially when compared to other sports media apps.

I’ve been a subscriber to The Athletic for a couple years now, and I can’t say enough good things about the content. The level of sports Journalism is unmatched. It is an essential daily read to stay on top of what’s new with my teams and a cornerstone for any fantasy insights. Also, as a die-hard hockey fan, The Athletic is a must with most major news outlets never giving much attention to the NHL.

Aside from the content itself, TheAthletic is great. Beautiful design with a sleek, easy-to-use interface. That being said, I still notice a small bug with the scores tab. When games are live, the scores no longer show up in the scores tab. Additionally, especially with the NFL, games that fall on a Monday also disappear from the scores tab when they go final. Obviously, a small minor bug that I’m sure will get fixed and certainly not a deterrent from downloading TheAthletic and become a subscriber

Generally, I have nothing but good things to say about both TheAthletic and The Athletic content. However, ever since the BetMGM partnership was announced, I’ve been pestered with notifications about articles concerning prop bets. I couldn’t be less interested in sports gambling.

In the comments section on the announcement of this partnership, many people were worried about precisely this situation. One of the authors of that article claimed that it would be possible to disable these notifications; if you weren’t interested in gambling or betting, you wouldn’t have to receive these notifications.

However, I have yet to see the option to disable sports gambling article notifications (which are essentially BetMGM sponsored content, i.e. ads). Considering I pay full subscription price and have done so since the site’s inception, this is a significant drag on my experience as a reader, and a change from what I signed up for.

I’ve been subscribed to The Athletic since 2018 I believe and have loved to see it grow. It has great writers, great coverage, and plenty of content. Well worth the subscription price.

However, my issue is mainly with TheAthletic hence the 3 stars. Of course there was the recent black main feed issue that has seemingly been resolved. My main issue though is the recent UI change where it has the Teams, Leagues, and Authors one follows at the top. I think when those were listed on more of a side bar, it was much better. I’d really like to see a return to this.

Edit: Props to TheAthletic developers. I wasn’t a fan of the UI change with who you follow at the top and having to side scroll. However, this recent update has helped fix this with the “For You” tab. Thanks for listening to feedback and implementing it!

I love the writing, sports coverage and the content of the podcasts, but the podcast playing functionality is lacking. It has no CarPlay support even though listening to podcasts during a commute is very common. It requires too many taps to get to a favorite podcast (one must scroll to the bottom of the podcasts page to even see one’s favorited podcasts). This work is fine while walking or standing still, but while behind the wheel it is prohibitive as it requires attention and precision on something other than driving. Finally, on multiple occasions the player will show that I am midway through as episode, but when I press play to resume, the player starts back at the beginning. When paused through progress bar reverts back to the original midway point until play is pressed again. This combination of errors and difficult playback makes my favorite podcasts almost impossible to listen to when I have the most time: during my commute.

Been a subscriber since the beginning. Lately I’ve become increasingly alarmed at the writers use of unnecessary personal opinion and judgement. I am only one person but I assure you that I will cancel my subscription if it continues. Today it is Trevor Bauer being accused of harassing women online and grouping him with managers recently punished for actual sexual harassment. It baffles me that this woman thinks she is justified in judging a person’s character whom she has clearly never met. It’s sad and very offensive- I don’t need writers to tell me who is socially acceptable. Bauer has done many good things for women, including hiring a female as his agent and promoting the first woman playing college baseball. He donates to charity but your writers would rather focus on his “offensive” tweets. Everyone who disagrees with these people are “offensive” nowadays- enough is enough. You know it too because you are sure quick to shut down comments on these articles. If you can’t allow comments perhaps you should reconsider publishing it.

Fans of Big Blue nation have starved for the ole days. Undoubtedly no animal could be treated like Ole Smokie today. Animals are life are part of the family in both Kentucky & Tennessee.
Your story brings back stories with enlightenment of how important football is to BBN football fans. Even though the story was in 1955 it shows the passion of today. I love the rivalry between blue and orange. The rivalry shined then as if it were only yesterday. No Kentucky has not been victorious in years past. No neither program has forgotten stories like this one between two states. Your article was awesome! Presentation of both football programs love was spot on. Trust me we are born rivals and taught by generations past that Kentucky/Tennessee football game is real. Your article hit on many different points the length fans go to show passion. Never think people have forgotten. Great read. Go Cats!

What a great publication. The Athletic has encouraged and expanded my interest in College Football. I’m appreciative of that. The articles are insightful, thoughtful and give a wide range of views. There’s plenty of in depth analytical observations when it comes to recruiting, game analysis and all things College Football. I especially appreciate the humor. Beat writers entrenched with each team and conference give me insight into the inner workings. Reading these well written articles about teams and especially the personal stories gets me fired up for Saturday. That enriches my life and helps the whole family get excited to not only watch our team, but all that College football has to offer every single Saturday.

Once again, I’m appreciative. Keep up the good work. It’s well worth a few bucks a month.

I read the Athletic for the coverage of the Packers and other Wisconsin sports teams. I wait with anticipation for each insightful article to drop. These aren't like many articles on the internet which are written by bloggers who write stories about the articles they read on the internet. The Athletic's articles are often news-making because of the fresh angles and smart analysis of the stories. All of the other beat reporters read the Athletic. There is no better source of high quality sports journalism.

I also love that there are no ads, pop-ups, or click bait. Many free sites are unusable. What I didn't expect is how the paid subscription increased the level of the conversation in the comments. There are no trolls from opposing teams, no unthinking cheerleaders, and no mindless outrage.

Finally, because we are the paying customers, the comments are read and often responded to by the writers. That's really cool.

If you’re a die hard sports fan this is what you need. Everything is click bait now with meaningless articles. I would read something from some pretty popular sports sites and think “I learned nothing and just wasted my time.” This is my first review I’ve written on any app or anything but I feel that passionate about The Athletic. If you’re constantly reading sports articles or reading fantasy info, this is what you need. The Athletic doesn’t care about clicks, or ad money. They care about writing quality sports articles that are informative, un-biased, and real. I’m addicted to the articles and as they grow it’ll only get better and better. After reading a few articles, you’ll start to see how garbage some of these sports sites are. Please keep it up and you’ll have my subscription for life.

You are getting a very solid reputation among knowledgeable sports fans. As a dual cynic—a former sports writer and English teacher— I’m very critical of grammatical blunders and careless writing. I see little of that with your site.

I yearn for advanced baseball analytics information. WHIP, FIP, swing plane, bat speed, exit velocity, spin rate as it pertains to pitch speed and sideways and vertical break, arm slot, etc., as well as path to ball, distance covered, percentage of catch probability, glove to hand exchange, and dozens of other defensive metrics. They exist; I want to see articles about them on a regular basis. I suggest you hire some young hotshot grad from a big-time school to write a regular column. If you don’t, another site will. And anyone who writes about an All-American” athlete who isn’t referring to Andy Hardy (Google it) will get an angry response from me reminding them that it’s “All-America.” Keep improving!

Love all the content on the Athletic, but am disappointed by TheAthletic interface when it comes to podcasts. Jade + the Count the Dings crew were the reason I subscribed to the Athletic in the first place, but the UI/UX makes it more difficult to enjoy the great pods being produced. Some features I would love to see implemented in a future update:
1.) Delete pods with a left swipe.
2.) Have pods remember where you left off in case you dont have time to finish.
3.) Have TheAthletic remember your playback speed preferences instead of having to change it for every pod.
4.) Make the athletic app compatible with pause commands via headphones. This has been very buggy for me, often opening my Music or Podcasts instead of just pausing the Athletic
If y’all could make this happen I would gladly give 5 stars. Love the content and happy I subscribe. Just wish a bit more love and attention was given to the podcast side of TheAthletic . Jade’s work deserves better.

Update:
Currently only lacking a good “Mark as Played” or “Delete” function for podcasts. My fake ocd hates seeing all the podcasts I subscribe to pile up despite having already listened to them. Not a dealbreaker in any way, still great content. Thanks for continuing to update and improve.

The Athletic is the ONLY site I read for sports coverage.... I don’t need to go elsewhere because they have every major sport covered by ELITE journalists and reporters. Particularly the NHL coverage. There are certainly other sites that have hockey news and articles, but The Athletic has every team covered and they do it all year round. Even during the summer or “off-season” there are constantly new articles about player/team projections, forecasts, opinions, one-on-one in-depth interviews, etc. On top of the coverage, TheAthletic and website are very user friendly and easy to navigate.... most importantly, THERE ARE NO COMMERCIALS OR ADS EVER!!!! In my opinion that is reason alone to justify the subcription! I will always be a subscriber to The Athletic and have recommended several individuals to sign up for your site. Thank you for the awesome coverage!

I can only rate this 3 stars. I thought I would see more exclusive articles. I am subscriber and some of the writers are truly great like Tom Reed. It’s great to see Jayson Stark has joined The Athletic. There are some really talented writers and that’s why I will renewal my subscription. The overall roster is good but not great. I still get emails about Chicago sports yet I’m in the Ohio market. I don’t understand that. My hope is the Athletic expands into the mid size markets and covers all levels of sports and when that happens the Athletic will truly become a great app.

The Athletic customer service support tries to be helpful but still needs to strive for better service. Renewing my subscription has become more of an ordeal than necessary. I would suggest contacting a customer at least 2 weeks in advance to make the process smoother.

I look forward to another year of the Athletic and watching and hoping for growth and improvements.

I paid them for a year subscription July 4, 2019. Their site took my money but hung and didn’t give me a login. I have contacted them by phone and email over a dozen separate times starting July 4. It is now August 10 and still they have not helped. It takes them up to a week to reply in any fashion and when they do, they do not make any effort to actually resolve the issue or deliver what I paid for, they send the same email over and over, clearly not reading my emails to them or listening to voice mails I leave them. It’s amazing great journalists like Sam Amick, Shams Charania and many more put their names on a brand with the worst customer service department I’ve ever encountered. I wonder if these authors know this is the way their work is being used, to get people to pay for something they never receive? It’s a shame. I’ve been getting rid of most of my subscriptions because my wife has been fighting cancer but I decided with the big July 4 sale for 60% off and the fact that I love the authors who cover the NBA and WNBA for TA that I’d go ahead and subscribe. I definitely regret it now that they have wasted hours of my time and I STILL haven’t got what I paid for. Plus I missed all the free agency coverage that was a big part of what I wanted. I hope whoever owns The Athletic will take responsibility, apologize to me and clean this up so it never happens to anyone else

If you’re a die hard sports fan this is what you need. Everything is click bait now with meaningless articles. I would read something from some pretty popular sports sites and think “I learned nothing and just wasted my time.” This is my first review I’ve written on any app or anything but I feel that passionate about The Athletic. If you’re constantly reading sports articles or reading fantasy info, this is what you need. The Athletic doesn’t care about clicks, or ad money. They care about writing quality sports articles that are informative, un-biased, and real. I’m addicted to the articles and as they grow it’ll only get better and better. After reading a few articles, you’ll start to see how garbage some of these sports sites are. Please keep it up and you’ll have my subscription for life.

The Athletic isn’t free. You can’t just hop on the internet and read article after article without paying a (small) price. For some that might turn you off to their work, but for those smart enough to realize the quality of writer/reporter The Athletic employs, it is an insignificant price to pay. The Athletic offers team coverage that is second to none, and league coverage that’s at the same (if not an even higher) level. Their Philadelphia reporters for every team (Charlie O’Connor for the Flyers, Bo Wulf for the Eagles, Derek Bodner for the Sixers, Matt Gelb for the Phillies, amongst other great writers) are fantastic, and big names like Jayson Stark cover league wide topics with incredible stories that often go beyond the games being played. The overall point of this rant is very simple.

TL:DR - ITS WORTH IT.

Kirk Ferentz is one of the classiest coaches in all of football. The blend of competitiveness, cerebral prowess, and humility make him unique. In the realm of chest thumping, ‘look at me’ actions (after the player made a tackle immediately after the play before when he blew a basic coverage), and failing to act like you’re the biggest thing to hit the end zone since William “the refrigerator” Perry, Coach Ferentz is a true leader.

The realization that to be successful, Iowa Football must put an emphasis on developing talent and teaching character in-sync is a very apparent foundation of his philosophy. Iowa will likely never be an Alabama, Clemson, of Ohio State, but as long as Kirk Ferentz is at the helm, many a fan can be proud and aspiring young coaches can do well to emulate the example he has set and to which he holds true.

“Free” 7 day trial yet you can only read one article. I was so interested and wanted to see how they write their content but after loitering around, TheAthletic will not even let me read other articles I am interested. I can only access one article and that’s it. The rest of the article would have a banner that says “View our plans, 20% off” something along those lines. (I would have pay TheAthletic for Warriors & Klay Thompson yet they want me to read about Jimmy Not James Buttler).

How can you judge an magazine type of app by its content when you don’t really have “free” trial to check things out. And limited to one free article?

I don’t mind paying $$ to read my sports I just want to ensure that I am reading contents with good material and substance. Many free article online lack substance and poorly written.

In the end, I ended up deleting TheAthletic in less than 30 minutes) as I was so frustrated that I can only read one article.

I saw TheAthletic on the internet after an article about Klay Thompson - it says download the free app to read. So I did, sadly, the free seven day trial won’t allow me to read the article that brought me to TheAthletic (weird, right?).

Do I recommend this?

Definitely not. There’s no way to confirm if the articles here are substantial in content during the free day trial. I wasted my time navigating their non-user-friendly interface. Don’t do the same.

I’ve seen too many people complain on Twitter and elsewhere that they have to pay for The Athletic. That’s dumb. I have no issue paying for quality content. And The Athletic is the definition of quality content. The writing is very good. The articles are in depth but not overly long. Just having an app without ads is a breath of fresh air. The interface is very simple and easy to use. I’m glad they didn’t try and make it overly complicated. My only issue so far is that there should be the option to switch to a night mode, white text on black background for the articles. That’s easier on my eyes, especially if I’m reading in bed and my fiancé is trying to sleep. Other than that, simply fantastic app and service

If The Athletic has rolled out to your favorite sports city, you will LOVE this. The tech features of TheAthletic are good, especially the opportunity to build your own custom feed. Not just for cities, but which sport(s), or even writers. They’ve been hiring great established writers, who now are free to write what they want, not constrained by newspaper restrictions (such as topic or story length). Subscribed to follow Michael Russo (MN Wild). Liked him before, love him now, as he’s mixing in some fantastic freeform features with familiar newsy stories. Have noticed other cities writers doing much the same thing. Roster of coverage seems to grow every week. Very happy with my purchase. Quality is worth paying for, and it’s not all that much for what you can access.

If you are a a sports fan and want to enjoy some great coverage and well written articles by some great writers then this is the site for you. I am so glad that I have signed up. I have now reduced my subscription to the newspapers to just the weekend. I am still able to access the papers website with full access for only the weekend subscription. The Athletic keeps on growing and adding more staff writers in the markets that the teams play in. So you are not just getting stories written by someone who only watched the game on tv. So sign up for the free trial period and give it a read. When that ends you will be signing up to keep on reading the great stuff that they add to the site daily.

I love the layout of TheAthletic for the most part, everything is streamlined and easily accessible. My only minor issue is how content is added to my feed. It would be great if I followed a specific team but also the whole league, if only team-specific articles from my team were in the feed, and then any general content for the league. For example, I follow the Reds and MLB. I really don’t want to see daily Cardinals-specific articles in my feed (which happens now) but I would like to see an article written about a specific Cardinal, if there was something noteworthy and generally interesting to all MLB fans, such as a great pitcher or MVP candidate. Hopefully that distinction is clear. Otherwise, it’s a really nice and great service, well worth my money!

I like the articles. They have some talent on the staff, and it shows in the writing. Unfortunately, that does not make for a great sports app.

Where are the live scores? Right now, you can go in TheAthletic and it shows game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals as “upcoming.” Seriously, that’s basic functionality that should exist in anything calling itself a “sports app.” The English Premier League? Nonexistent, according to The Athletic, and the same goes for the UEFA Champions League, Formula 1, and other basic necessities.

The rationale for the paywall is that ad-supported models are unsustainable, but it’s hard to pay for a sports app that can’t even give you score updates and is completely missing major sports.