Successful Entrepreneur and the Founder Of The Athletic, Alex Mather

Alex Mather is the founder of The Athletic, a subscription-based media publisher providing better sports coverage for die-hard fans. Since its inception in 2016, The Athletic’s all-star team of writers has created thousands of high-quality stories free of advertising, pop-ups, and auto-play videos for subscribers.

Alex founded the company as an alternative to the struggling ad-supported models as a former employee of subscription-based fitness company Strava. With the mission of producing smarter coverage for die-hard fans, Alex built the company as a former employee of subscription-based fitness company Strava. The Athletic’s business is supported on subscription revenue rather than advertising revenue.

Mather felt that sports fans would be prepared to pay for quality reporting and writing, as well as a clean app without advertisements. A few newspapers were experimenting with paywalls at the time, but the general consensus in the business was that information on the internet should be free.

The site debuted in Chicago in January 2016 as part of Y Combinator’s summer 2016 batch. Alex has been stationed in their San Francisco headquarters, where he has built a business foundation that continues to yield excellent outcomes.

The Athletic covers a wide range of sports and major leagues in order to appeal to the general public. The NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, racing, golf, the English Premier League, European soccer, and other sports will be covered. While most big newspapers or websites have a few specialists covering the sports beat, this is a brand that has a specialist covering every single team in every single league, with numerous writers covering the same beat at times. This model provides the most extensive coverage available, which is unmatched by other sources.

The Athletic boasts 600,000 paying subscribers and an 80% year-over-year retention rate. Sixty percent of its subscribers follow sports teams from two or more cities. The Athletic will deliver local coverage in 47 cities and regions across North America, as well as in the United Kingdom, by 2022.