The Athletic and Amazon are set to collaborate on a new sports show.
On Thursday, The Athletic announced the launch of The Athletic Show, a weekly 30-minute digital video series that will cover “the hottest topics in sports.” The show will emanate out of The Athletic’s studio in Chicago, and is set to debut this Saturday. Episodes will be available to Fire TV customers early, before listeners and viewers can find it on The Athletic’s platforms.
The Athletic Show will be hosted by three of the publication’s most recognizable personalities. Robert Mays, host of The Athletic Football Show, Zena Keita, co-host of No Offseason and The Athletic NBA Daily, and Jason Goff, host of The Full Go podcast, will join together to cover wide-ranging topics throughout the sports world.
The debut episode on Saturday will feature stories about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ return to the World Series, the beginning of the NBA season, and a profile of Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown’s father, John Brown.
Per the announcement, “The show draws on the full strength of The Athletic’s global newsroom of more than 500 reporters and editors, whose journalism covers hundreds of professional and collegiate sports teams. It will take fans behind the scenes of the teams, clubs and leagues they follow, including nearly 50 North American markets and the biggest soccer clubs across Europe.”
In today’s media environment, it’s rare to see an outlet decide to launch a general sports show. Most new shows are designed to capture a built-in audience that is dedicated to one sport, or even a certain niche within that sport. The generalist sports fan is a dying breed, but that’s seemingly the type of viewer The Athletic Show is going for.
To be sure, The Athletic is probably one of the best positioned publications in the country to produce a show like this, given its deep bench of beat reporters and feature writers. Whether the show will find its audience is the question.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.