First off, really rooting for the Athletic, because I genuinely hope there is a place for good sportswriting in the future (and underlying that hope is that a business model will emerge that allows that to happen).

As a big college football fan though, your comment highlights one of the challenges I think they face with the "go local" strategy.

If the sports news/writing ecosystem were just bland ESPN-type coverage, I think there's a really clear value proposition. The reality is that there are a ton of other players with a local voice that users can get to for free (from the old school local beat writers to SB Nation's sites that represent ever major local team).

The bet they're making seems to be that there's room for a quality content provider, and I hope that ends up being true.