Bob Kravitz unloads on miserable culture at The Athletic: ‘Soul-sucking’

Veteran sportswriter Bob Kravitz has made his feelings clear on The Athletic.

Kravitz, a longtime Colts reporter, was among about 20 writers laid off by the outlet last month in a broader restructuring.

For the debut of his new Substack page, Kravitz excoriated the leadership of the outlet as inhumane and his editorial guidelines as inconsistent.

The most biting commentary came when Kravitz says he was put on “probation” to drive a given amount of subscriptions in a stretch immediately following heart surgery.

“I wasn’t happy that they put me on probation just a few months after a quadruple bypass in 2020. (And during the pandemic, no less). I guess my numbers weren’t what they wanted, but hell, I was recovering from a life-changing medical event,” Kravitz wrote.

“You would think that might have some impact on their thinking, but no. I had to produce 395 subscriptions in three months – or else. That’s absurd, unfair and outrageous, especially given my health situation. Well, I survived, producing more than 400 subs by working myself half to death, a great idea after open-heart surgery. But that soured me on the place forever. I felt it in my bones:

“They don’t give a f–k about me as a human being.“

Kravitz, 63, previously wrote for the Indianapolis Star and local NBC affiliate WTHR.

The Athletic was acquired by the New York Times last year and has since embarked on a pivot from hyper-local coverage to more focus on national beats, as the Times turns its whole sports desk over to the outlet.

Kravitz said that the shifting “goalposts” and relentless focus on “metrics” wore on him.

“I wasn’t happy that I had four editors in four years, all of them wanting something different. Write long-form pieces. OK, fine. No, write strong opinion columns. OK, fine. No, write about roster construction (what?). The goalposts kept moving, and they’re still moving with the New York Times’ acquisition of The Athletic,” Kravitz said,

“And the metrics…everything was metrics. (Add “old man yelling at cloud” gif) I understand that’s the current way of the world in a media business that is almost universally struggling, but the numbers were in our faces – and on our minds – 24/7.

“The Athletic makes a really big deal about the importance of mental health, and that’s great, but I think I’m speaking for a majority of current Athletic writers, the primacy of metrics (subs, unique views and the rest) had a deleterious impact on our collective mental health as a staff. There was nothing more dispiriting than working your ass off on a story, only to look at the metrics and see one subscription and 2,000 unique views. It was soul-sucking, honestly.”

Kravitz, who has since also landed a part-time role with the magazine Indianapolis Monthly, further alleged that his editors at The Athletic “chickened out” when they killed a feature story about Jay Mariotti, the firebrand who previously wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times and was a fixture on ESPN’s “Around the Horn”.

“My immediate editor liked the idea, but once it got to the next level of editing, stuff started happening,” Kravitz wrote.

“Too many cooks in the kitchen, and all that. Too nice. Too critical. Too dangerous. Too something. They decided, and I quote, ‘The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.’”