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More Staff Cuts at PHLY
Published:
Tyler Zulli and Rich Hofmann lost their gigs at PHLY. Zulli had been doing Phillies as of late and Rich was writing the daily newsletter:
Zulli was part of the 97.5 the Fanatic exodus that formed the backbone of PHLY’s initial staff. That included Anthony Gargano, Jamie Lynch, and Devon Givens. Rich was covering the Sixers for The Athletic (now with ads) up until 2023, then linked up with PHLY a short time later.
PHLY has done consistent trimming and reshuffling, hiring and firing regularly since launching a few years ago, which is natural for a new outlet in a new market. It’s funny, because they sent out a press release a few weeks ago reporting 40% year-over-year audience growth and 50,000 YouTube subscribers. Then they cut a couple of guys in Q1. The contrast in optics will always seem goofy, but it’s not totally a surprise because the industry blows right now, with the proliferation of artificial intelligence and Asian scammers and all kinds of copycat bullshit flooding an already-saturated market. If big tech gave even one iota of a fuck about what’s taking place on their platforms, the journalism business would be in much better shape.
People always ask if PHLY (and owner All City) is making money, and I have no clue, honestly. They have a mix of subscriber content and daily podcast offerings, but the latter always presents a difficulty in scaling. The staff is relatively large and there’s probably a decent amount of overhead there, but we don’t have the books sitting in front of us. We can “effort” that information.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com