One of the more important figures in the history of The Athletic is leaving the company.
That would be chief content officer Paul Fichtenbaum. Fichtenbaum spent 26 years with Time Inc. and Sports Illustrated, leaving as SI group editorial director in 2016. He then came on board with The Athletic (only launched in Chicago that January) in a consulting role that summer and a full-time chief content officer role the following year.
There, Fichtenbaum played an essential role in their expansion to subsequent cities (including their second city, Toronto, in October 2016), national (beginning in July 2017), and international (especially in Canada and the U.K.) coverage and their eventual $550 million acquisition by The New York Times in 2022.
He helped them target underserved areas where fans were willing to pay for top coverage, including hockey and gave them a lot of credibility for bringing in big names, given his past work at SI. Last year, he went from the chief content officer title to editorial director, investigations, enterprise, and standards.
Fichtenbaum helped shape much of The Athletic’s coverage and its evolution over time. And there was a lot of evolution. They went from being primarily about local beats to more of a national focus (a trend certainly continuing these days) and a replacement for the Times‘ sports desk.
The company also tried many experiments, including some in video and audio that didn’t necessarily work quite as planned. But they had other moves that worked out quite well. Fichtenbaum was there through all of that and helped them get to a point where the Times not only bought them but seemed pleased with their profitability projections.
And Puck’s John Ourand reported this week in his The Varsity newsletter that Fichtenbaum is now moving on:
The Athletic’s chief content officer, Paul Fichtenbaum, the former editor-in-chief of Sports Illustrated, is leaving the New York Times Company-owned publication. His last day is tomorrow, and he plans to do some consulting and advisory work before searching for a new job. Fichtenbaum’s arrival at The Athletic gave an instant dose of credibility to the startup. But The Athletic found it hard to maintain its startup mentality after the Times Co. acquired the business for a staggering $550 million, far more than other bidders were willing to stomach.
And while the newspaper killed off its own sports section to make room for the disruptor, The Athletic inevitably became a more establishment—Timesian, if you will—kinda joint.On September 9, just after Fichtenbaum finished a standards presentation to The Athletic’s hockey journalists in New York, he told his bosses that he wanted to take a break.
Fichtenbaum posted a farewell to the company on LinkedIn, citing Ourand’s post:
This is a notable move on a couple of levels. For one, it will be interesting to see if The Athletic takes any significantly different direction following Fichtenbaum’s exit. It may not be; what the site is and isn’t is relatively well-established at this point, and he certainly wasn’t the only one influencing what they did and how they did it.
But every executive has their own particular ideas and priorities, and it will be worth watching what Fichtenbaum’s replacement (if one with his exact title is indeed named, which isn’t certain) or replacements emphasize.
It will also be worth keeping an eye on Fichtenbaum himself with that planned consulting and advisory work. There are certainly lots of sports media outlets out there trying to expand their profiles these days, and maybe he’s a fit to work with something like the AllCity Network, which is currently following an expansion plan that looks a lot like The Athletic of old.
Or maybe there are outlets that aren’t that prominent yet that Fichtenbaum could boost. But he’s definitely a figure to watch, given his SI and athletic work, and we’ll see where he lands.
[Puck]