Find experts in their field, give them the proper incentives, put them around the teams they cover every day, and appeal to the hardcore sports fans who are becoming more educated and savvy than ever before.

And work your you-know-what off.

Those are my goals as we build out The Athletic Philadelphia.

I was in a pretty good place when Alex Mather, the CEO of this fine enterprise, approached me a few months back. I was covering the 76ers full time, with access to the team, and as my own boss. I set my own editorial direction. I covered what I thought needed to be covered, how I thought it needed to be covered.

That’s always been key for me. If Alex was going to be successful luring me over, having the freedom to continue writing for diehard fans was going to be crucial. Stop getting into the nitty-gritty of the salary cap, no longer explore advanced statistics, and cut down on video breakdowns to appeal to the widest audience possible? No. I’d rather create my own outlet than scale back my coverage, even if doing so gave me a smaller platform.

But by joining The Athletic, not only would I continue to write for the diehard fans of this great community, but I would also get the chance to help build a team of All-Star writers to cover this team, and this city, like never before?

And we would be motivated by the right incentives?

I’m in.

Trying to separate the good people of the Delaware Valley from their wallets is not an easy task, nor should it be. Paying for local sports content hasn’t been the norm in quite some time — since the dawn of the internet, really — and there are many outlets that you can head to if you want to read about your favorite team for free. But in order to truly hire the right people and create content that the most loyal fans are dying to consume, subscriptions are the way to go.

Some will make the case that subscription-based journalism is essential because of the recent layoffs at ESPN, or the “pivot to video” that just happened at Fox Sports. Witnessing titans of the industry announce on Twitter that they had been let go was certainly tough to watch, especially as I’ve gotten to know many of them on a personal level over the past few years. But in order to make a compelling case as to why The Athletic’s pivot back to writing (via subscription-based content) is necessary, the argument has to be one based on value added to you, the reader.

Local content aimed specifically toward diehard fans is perhaps the easiest case to make.

When you start listing the common complaints diehard sports fans have with the way their teams are covered, you can trace a depressingly high number of them back to the way content is monetized on the internet. The sheer volume of page views necessary to truly generate sustainable revenue is shocking. To win in the ad-driven model, sites generally have to react to every piece of news — no matter how small — and get content up as quickly as possible to maximize traffic.

It’s a full-on race for social media engagement and links from news aggregators — a race which needs to be won to survive, even if the content adds little new to the discussion.

Time is of the essence, and time is the enemy of depth. Clickbait is frustrating, but relaying every trade rumor or fanciful report is proven to drive traffic. Targeted ads yield bigger returns, and autoplay video even bigger still. These are all frustrating for readers, but necessary if ad-driven media outlets want to stay afloat. They’re practices built directly into the revenue model.

When every decision is made based on how to maximize page views, and how to maximize the revenue from each page view, readers suffer, especially the ones who live, eat, breathe, and sleep Philadelphia sports. That’s not the way I want to cover sports. That’s never been the way I’ve wanted to cover sports. And that’s why I’m so pumped about The Athletic coming to Philadelphia.

“Why am I writing this article?” is something I want us to ask ourselves each time we sit down at our keyboards. I want to move the conversation forward with every article that we write. To provide information you won’t find anywhere else. To go beyond the surface layer and into the details that diehard fans deserve. The internet has made fans more aware, and more knowledgeable, than they’ve ever been about the sports we cover. The media needs to evolve with them.

If Robert Covington or Joel Embiid sign an extension this fall, a dozen different outlets will let you know how much and for how long that extension is for, with a quote or two from the primary participants sprinkled in for good measure. I want to let you know how that impacts the Sixers’ salary cap flexibility in 2021, even if that means we have to take an extra hour, or two hours, or an evening to research the details before publishing the article. If the Sixers win on a buzzer-beater, I don’t want to care how many Twitter clicks I can get if I publish 200 words describing the play 10 minutes after it happened. (with a viral GIF!).

I want to diagram out how Brett Brown utilized his big men in the horns set instead. I don’t want to wait for Brown to point out the Sixers’ defensive performance with Embiid on the court before I write about it — I want you to know about that weeks in advance.

Subscription-based content and a focus on the diehard fans gives us an ability to think differently than many in the industry. I want to find the stories nobody else is. I want to provide unique content. To zig when everyone else zags, one might say. Otherwise, I’m just filling a seat and you’re not getting your money’s worth.

That doesn’t mean charging people for content is the magic elixir to make sports writing great again. We can talk about how subscriptions allow us to think differently than other outlets, but if our writing isn’t worth it then none of that will matter. We have to make good on our promise to push the conversation forward with thoughtful and informative coverage.

To do that, we also have to target the right people to fill out our staff: Writers who have already proven to be able to separate themselves from the pack, to be different, and to have credibility with the fan base. We’re going to give these experts access to teams, not just to relay news and quotes but to provide context necessary to explain, or question, the actions of the teams.

To be able to call Sheil Kapadia a colleague is something I’m immensely excited about. There is nobody better suited to separate himself from the many great Eagles writers, to find the new angle that others aren’t talking about, than Sheil. Not only that, but we’ll get Sheil’s always-informed thoughts on the other Philly teams as well.

He’s joined by the great Bo Wulf covering the Eagles. I can’t wait to see Charlie O’Connor’s star grow as Flyers faithful realize he’s one of the best in the business at explaining the game. To be able to handpick Rich Hofmann and Mike O’Connor to help explain what they see on the basketball court as the Sixers begin what is shaping up to be an exciting era of basketball is an amazing opportunity. Not to mention the incredible value-add national giants like Seth Davis, Stewart Mandel, Dana O’Neil, Ken Rosenthal, and other The Athletic writers will provide. I think we have a terrific team in place for Philly, and there are more announcements to come.

That doesn’t mean each and every article we write is going to be groundbreaking, that each opinion we have will be correct, or that each projection we make will turn out to be true. What it does mean is that we’re going to strive to make sure our analysis is well-researched, that our opinions are genuine and our motivations are true.

We’re going to live, eat, and breathe Philadelphia sports, and hopefully satisfy the cravings of diehard Philadelphia sports fans. It’s an exciting time in the Philadelphia sports landscape, and we look forward to navigating it with you.