At a time when many legacy publishers are struggling to survive, let alone expand their readership, The New York Times is always on the hunt for ways to maintain their reach.
According to Axios’ Sara Fischer, The Gray Lady is exploring bundled subscription partnerships with smaller publishers in the U.S. to expand their subscriber base.
The effort is something they’ve been doing internationally for some time, bundling with partners such as El País in Spain and Politiken in Denmark. Now that they’re bringing the strategy to the States, they reportedly intend to focus on partnerships that provide access to their lifestyle subscription products, including cooking, games, and sports.
Fischer reported that the Times pitched digital news startup The Ankler an arrangement that would have given their subscribers access to NYT subscription games content. That deal never came to fruition but does seem to provide clarity on how they would position these kinds of deals.
The company also currently has an “Enterprise Subscriptions, Partnerships Sales Director” job opening on LinkedIn, presumably to oversee this effort.
While there are no details specific to the Times’s sports coverage, digital access to The Athletic could be a potential carrot in one of these subscription partnerships.
The Times currently has over 11 million total subscribers, with around 10.5 million being digital-only. In 2022, the company said that it hoped to reach 15 million subscribers by 2027. The Athletic became profitable for the company for the first time in the third quarter of 2024.