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The NFL and The Athletic have formalized a content partnership ahead of this upcoming football season.
Front Office Sports first reported in August that the sides were in talks.
As of Wednesday afternoon, there are several stories from the New York Times-owned sports outlet populated on NFL.com’s headline bar. When clicking into the stories, a paywall emerges for the NFL+ subscription platform, which has various tiers that can include mobile streaming for every NFL game that airs on local Fox and CBS affiliates, as well as all standalone games (including ones on ESPN, NBC, Amazon’s Prime Video, and Netflix), and NFL RedZone.
Jordan Cohen, a spokesperson for The Athletic, told FOS by email that beginning Wednesday, NFL+ subscribers “have the option to add a subscription to The Athletic directly to their existing NFL+ plans. The goal is to expand our reach and deliver The Athletic’s best-in-class sports journalism to millions of dedicated pro football fans across the globe.”
Cohen wrote to FOS that including The Athletic’s “coverage within the NFL+ ecosystem places our brand in front of a massive, highly engaged NFL audience.”
According to Cohen, NFL+ subscribers who purchase The Athletic’s “add-on subscription can discover and read our expert NFL written coverage within the NFL+ platform.” He added that while “users can access initial NFL content on NFL+ through the add-on, links will direct readers back to The Athletic app and website to explore all the benefits of a” subscription to The Athletic.
“The NFL will have no role in our journalism and cannot edit any of our content,” Cohen told FOS. “The partnership has no impact on our reporting or editorial process.”
The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Athletic quietly also agreed previously to a similar arrangement for its stories to appear on NBA.com.
NFL Media—the league’s content arm—is bolstering its offerings after selling NFL Network to ESPN. FOS previously reported that Andrew Siciliano, Colleen Wolfe, and Michael Yam are returning to NFL Media and popular creators Trevor Sikkema and Brett Kollmann are also joining. NFL Media announced earlier Wednesday that former quarterback Cody Kessler and wide receiver Nelson Agholor are also hopping aboard as analysts.
