Sebastian Tomich on The Athletic's pivot to ads

The Athletic started in 2015 with a simple proposition: It would produce the highest quality sports journalism with a subscription model that would align incentives with producing quality work vs chasing traffic. The approach wasn't without its flaws -- The Athletic consistently lost money -- but it did produce a differentiated, high quality product. In January, The New York Times bought The Athletic for $550 million. Nine months later, the Times, which has proven that advertising can co-exist in a subscription-first model, introduced advertising on The Athletic. Sebastian Tomich, chief commercial officer at The Athletic and a Times veteran, joined me to discuss the advantages of building an ad model from scratch and how The Athletic is seeking to align brands with sports affinity.