Case Study: The Athletic boosts engagement and grows subscribers with Metalab

The Athletic boosts search traffic 5% with Metalab

The Athletic, a sports journalism platform with a million subscribers, faced the challenge of expanding its audience to engage casual sports fans without diminishing the value of its core subscription service. They partnered with the design firm Metalab to add a freemium offering that would serve this new audience.

Metalab designed a solution that paired The Athletic's in-depth reporting with a free real-time experience featuring live news, scores, and in-game updates. This included improved navigation, richer team pages, and free previews of premium content to create a natural journey to becoming a paid subscriber. The results were significant, including a 5% increase in search traffic and engagement from 30% of subscribers on new features. Following this engagement, The Athletic was acquired by The New York Times for $550 million.

The Athletic