ImSlower wrote:Hey, to each his own. I think reading ESPN articles feels like I'm reading a high school circular and TMZ rolled into one, and am quite glad that I never actually need to click on anything related to it due to forums like this summarizing any article with a lick of interest. I suppose that if you solely spend time on a single team, it's to be understood that free blogs and a great forum like this would suffice. I visit vivaelbirdos daily for my superb Cardinals writing. I enjoy the Athletic as an aggregate of a bunch of great writers, and it's gotten me to read a lot more about teams I'd otherwise not pay much attention to. I bet during the shutdown I have averaged 30 to 60 minutes a day on the site, so the deal I got (like 67% off for the Black Friday deal) makes it even more of a lasting value for me. I will let the sub stretch to full price once my initial offer expires.
In theory a lot of the podcasts there (as much as anywhere else) have a lot of great content for my payment, but for whatever reason I simply cannot enjoy that specific media. Same reason I can't stand talk radio; it simply drives me mad. I need music pumping through my ears the way Baby Driver does. Though his taste far exceeds my own. Then again, I have a friend I consider brilliant who loathes written online media, as screens irritate his eyes; he listens or contributes to podcasts and radio call-ins for hours a day.
Totally get why you wouldn't want to pay for ESPN Insider, but I'm surprised you'd think the quality of the content there is low or TMZ like. They have a lot of really high quality people there. I'm a bit less interested in it now than I was in the past, but Hollinger, Simmons, Lowe, and Stein were all really excellent IMO. A lot of the big stats guys went to other places and independents also came up with a lot of great stat stuff since, but ESPN really used to do a lot of good deep analysis in the past.
Also, FWIW, I never paid more than $10 a year for ESPN insider, which I typically got by paying for a four year subscription to the magazine for $30-40 through some discounter and using the magazine subscription to activate the site subscription. Looks like ESPN the magazine folded, because I just went to look to see what kind of deal you could get now on it, and it's gone. I won't be paying $50 a year or whatever ESPN Insider is going forward.