The New York Times will acquire sports media website the Athletic for $550 million, the latest in its move to expand its subscribers.

The New York-based publication will take over the Athletic, which offers coverage of more than 200 clubs and teams in the United States and globally, within the first quarter of 2022, the New York Times said Friday.

“We are now in pursuit of a goal meaningfully larger than 10 million subscriptions and believe The Athletic will enable us to expand our addressable market of potential subscribers,” said New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien in a news release Thursday.

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The leadership of the Athletic, based in San Francisco and has 1.2 million subscribers, will remain the same, and the team will operate separately from its new parent company while remaining one of its subsidiaries.

“We started The Athletic to bring fans closer to the teams, players and leagues they love through deep, immersive journalism and storytelling,” Athletic co-founders Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann said in a joint statement. “Today marks a thrilling milestone for that dream, one realized because of the hard work of every single one of our employees. We are proud to have The Athletic become part of The Times Company’s family of subscription products.”

The New York Times plans to reach 10 million subscribers by 2025, a goal the company is on track to reach after it gained millions of subscribers during the Trump administration.

But the company’s political audience has dwindled since President Joe Biden took office, pushing the outlet to expand its audience through lifestyle pieces, puzzles, and other means. The company had 8.4 million subscribers as of the last quarter.

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The acquisition of the Athletic will be the second-largest purchase the Gray Lady has made. The company paid $1.1 billion for Boston’s largest newspaper, the Boston Globe, in 1993 but has since sold the newspaper at a loss.

Original Location: New York Times purchases the Athletic for $550 million

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