I am proud to announce I have agreed to become editor-in-chief of @AthleticMtl and @AthletiqueMtl: https://t.co/RObwR7eIWP
— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) August 14, 2017
The Athletic, a website operating in several cities staffed with writers who have either left or been laid off from jobs at newspapers and other publications, is coming to Montreal.
Arpon Basu, frequent local sports commentator and until last month managing editor of the NHL’s French website LNH.com, announced today he’s been hired as the editor-in-chief of both the French and English versions of the Montreal section of the website.
His first post for the website is short on details about the future but has perspective on Basu’s career up until now. (Among his previous gigs was writing amateur athlete profiles for the Montreal Gazette on a freelance basis.)
In follow-up tweets, Basu and editor-in-chief James Mirtle say they’re “going to go big on Montreal, with several writers on the Canadiens” and covering other sports as demand warrants. No other hires have been announced, but announcements should be expected “in the coming weeks” and coverage to begin this fall.
The Athletic, which costs $10 a month or $58 a year, is an ad-free paywalled site with occasional free content. Its writers cover sports teams in Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and the San Francisco Bay area. Mirtle explained the website’s business model in a blog post in February.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated James Mirtle’s connection with The Athletic.
Welcome to the future, where the business models are way more direct and things live or die based on people’s willingness to part with the cash.
Lol! The Athletic wasn’t founded by Mirtle at all. He is just an employee. They started in Chicago months before it came to Toronto.