Any entry into the Australian market would come after one of the most difficult years for the local sports media industry. The suspension of games and events due to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in job losses across the industry, including a major cut in Fox Sports and the NRL digital team. Newswire Australian Associated Press also cut its sports coverage when it was bought by a group of investors and philanthropists.
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athleticism is one of two leading international outlets attempting to establish a presence in the local market this year. The Pedestrian TV Group announced earlier this month that it will be launching a local version of the leading women’s lifestyle website, Refinery29, and would reinvest in a local branch of Vice.
If successful, athleticism would join international websites like Goalkeeper Australia and Australia Daily Mail, who have been operating in Australia for years. However, unlike other international websites of a generalist nature, athleticism specializes in sports, and its content is behind a paywall.
Other major US outlets such as HuffPost France and BuzzFeed fought locally. BuzzFeed closed its Australian news division last year around the same time 10Every day, a local lifestyle website owned by ViacomCBS, has closed. More recently HuffPost France, which significantly reduced its operations in 2017, has closed.