Just 10 months ago, when The Athletic celebrated its second birthday, the subscription-only website had 65 editorial employees in 10 markets. and college football seasons open next month, it will have more than 300 editorial employees, and sites focused on 38 markets. Backed by $28 million in venture capital, The Athletic long ago moved past simple questions like what to cover and where, to more existential ones: Can its rapid growth be sustained? Its current hiring surge, then, is more a doubling down on that bet than a tangible payoff on it. Daniel Leff, the founder of Luminari Capital, which has invested in The Athletic, argued that the website is already worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and the only remaining question presently is how large it will grow.

Source: New York Times August 24, 2018 09:00 UTC