The New York TimesThe deal was announced by The Athletic on Thursday to buy sports news website The Athletic.

This deal has a value of approximately $550million The InformationBefore the announcement, the first to report on the agreement was. The first to report the value was.

The companies had discussed an agreement earlier in the year, but they broke down after the Times suggested a lower price than The Athletic thought was fair, according to a source who requested anonymity because it was private. It hired Liontree as a facilitator to handle a formal process.

The source stated that this raised the purchase price of The Athletic. The source said that The Times was interested in The Athletic as it increases the number of NYT subscribers. The person said that the Athletic would continue operating as an independent site.

NYT may use the Athletic as a signal to pursue a future acquisition strategy to acquire niche-based journalism businesses that have high-interest customers and are willing to pay subscription fees to report. The Times is likely to target sites that focus on science and tech or other interests in the future, according to the source.

This deal will bring new subscribers to The Times, and it will deepen the sports coverage. The Times had previously established a goal. to reach 10 million print and digital subscribers by 2025. The company had 8.4 million subscribers as of the third quarter 2021.

The Athletic claimed in the latter part of 2020 that it had hit 1 million subscribers and that its newsroom was profitable based on subscription revenue and ad sales — though that assessment didn’t account for operating costs in other areas of the company.

The merger between Axios and the short-form news site Axios had been considered previously by The Athletic CNBC reported in MarchBased on information from sources who are familiar with this matter,

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