Derek Bodner Returning to his Independent Roots

Earlier today, we had Derek Bodner at -125 odds to join the Sixers front office, but we were wrong. No bets will be refunded.

After announcing his departure from “The Athletic,” Bodner revealed Wednesday that’s returning to his independent roots with a daily newsletter:

Welcome to The Daily Six, my new subscription newsletter about the Philadelphia 76ers.

Here’s what I’m looking to do: https://t.co/tZIQBzacwx

— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) December 8, 2021

At the site, Derek says he’s launching The Daily Six in part “because I know that there is a market for premium, subscription-based local sports coverage, and because I believe that this is the place where I can offer the most value to diehard fans of the Philadelphia 76ers.” He notes that his contract was up with The Athletic, which is fascinating to me because I didn’t even know their writers were on contracts.

One of the interesting things is that Bodner has done this before. Back when Philly Mag decided they didn’t need sports for whatever reason, and moved on from Derek and the very good Birds 24/7 blog, Bodner decided to do his own thing, and created a successful and sustainable Patreon setup.

In his introductory post at the new site, he talks at length about his experience at The Athletic, writing this, in part:

The Athletic has been caught in a perpetual growth mindset, something which isn’t necessarily surprising for VC funded startups. It’s also a mindset that isn’t necessarily bad, either, as it’s created a lot of well-paying jobs for reporters in an industry that has been cutting staff for going on two decades.

….

I still believe in The Athletic’s product, which probably isn’t the wisest thing for me to say now that I’m competing with them in an attempt to separate the good people of the Delaware Valley from their wallets. It’s just not necessarily the kind of writing that I want to focus on or the product that I want to build.

….

There was an expectation on my end that there would eventually be a shift away from growth and towards subscriber retention, but that shift never came. In fact, it went in the opposite direction. Everything came down to how many new subscribers our own individual articles brought in. Everything came down to finding something juicy enough to hit a home run.

Which, again, isn’t by itself good or bad, it just started to veer away from the kind of content that I wanted to create.

I find the whole thing interesting because, well, this is what we write about every day at CB, the sports media landscape. Derek’s a smart guy, and he’s got a loyal following of Sixers fans. He’s essentially going from large subscription model to solo subscription model, and betting on himself in the process. It takes cajones to step out on your own and do that because it’s risky and there are no guarantees. Plus, he’s directly competing with former colleague Rich Hofmann and other pay sites, so perhaps we can introduce a new Crossing Broad series called “PAYWALL WARZ.” Or maybe “PAID SUBSCRIPTION NEWSLETTER WARZ.” something like that.

But good for Derek, who is now his own boss.

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