The Athletic has ‘fastest-growing audience’ in New York Times portfolio, CEO says

The Athletic looks much different now than it did in 2022, when The New York Times purchased the publication for $550 million. Some of that is for the better; others would argue it’s for the worse. But whatever Times ownership has done for The Athletic, it seems to be working from a customer acquisition standpoint.

Speaking with Axios media reporter Sara Fischer at Cannes Lions, New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien revealed that The Athletic is the fastest-growing vertical in the publication’s entire portfolio.

.@TheAthletic “has the fastest growing audience” in the @nytimes portfolio, CEO Meredith Kopit Levien says at #AxiosHouse at Cannes: pic.twitter.com/4byKiv2xep

— Axios (@axios) June 22, 2026

“In The Athletic, when we acquired it four-and-a-half years ago, it was largely behind a paywall; it had about a million subscribers. That was about as many readers as they had. And [now], The Athletic has the fastest-growing audience on The New York Times. It’s many millions more than that today,” Kopit Levien revealed.

That’s an impressive feat when the Times counts popular products like its games division, Wirecutter, cooking, and of course news among its verticals. Games, in particular, has taken off in recent years as products like Wordle and Connections grow in popularity.

The Athletic’s growth has coincided with some structural changes to the publication. Since joining the Times operation, The Athletic has shifted its focus from covering local beats to covering stories of national interest. Just a year after purchasing the publication, the Times shuttered its traditional sports department, replacing its content with stories from The Athletic.

The Athletic is trying to further grow its user base this summer by dropping its paywall for the World Cup, allowing free access to its reporting through the Final on July 19.