The Athletic, owned by The New York Times, announces layoffs to nearly 4% of newsroom

In what has become a common but troubling trend in journalism, layoffs have now come for The Athletic.

The sports subscription publication owned by The New York Times announced Monday that it would be cutting nearly 4% of its newsroom, which amounts to almost 20 journalists. As part of the reorganization, 20 others will be reassigned to different roles.

In a staff memo, publisher David Perpich and executive editor Steven Ginsberg wrote that The Athletic was doing away from its previous model of having one beat reporter cover each team and instead on broader coverage.

"Even with the changes being announced today, the size of our newsroom will grow this year compared to last, as will our overall investments in our editorial group in the years ahead," Perpich and Ginsberg wrote in the memo, according to The New York Times. "At the end of this process, we will have more than 100 beat reporters on teams."

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In January 2022, The New York Times bought The Athletic for $550 million. The Athletic was founded in January 2016 by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann and had grown to 1.2 million subscribers at the time of the acquisition. 

According to The New York Times, The Athletic has continued to operate at a loss, including one of nearly $36 million from the time of the acquisition to the end of 2022.

These layoffs join dozens of others that have hit the journalism industry, including ones at the Los Angeles Times, which announced Wednesday the elimination of 74 positions.

Have any of The Athletic layoffs been announced?

Individual reporters are starting to share the news on social media, though the complete picture of laid-off journalists remains unavailable. Among the journalists who have announced are former senior staff writer Bob Kravitz, former sports business reporter Daniel Kaplan, former sports business reporter Bill Shea, former staff writer Bob Sturm, who covered the Dallas Cowboys, former staff writer Rich Hofmann, who covered the Philadelphia 76ers and senior writer at The Athletic Montréal, Marc Antoine Godin.