(Photo by Bob Vonderau)

Looks like D.C. is going to be getting some new local sports coverage come early September—The Athletic, an upstart sports outlet with satellites in 32 U.S. cities and eight Canadian ones, is launching its D.C. vertical in a few weeks.

The outlet is entirely subscription based and, for now, mostly funded by venture capital. It focuses on in-depth sports writing of a kind that founders Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann have said is quickly disappearing at other outlets, which are pressured to churn out quick posts (“empty calories,” as Mather put it to the New York Times last year).

The outlet’s attitude toward other local sports news coverage has been less than friendly.

“We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing,” Mather somewhat infamously said in that same New York Times interview last year. “We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment. We will make business extremely difficult for them.”

They’re not joking. Their model, and the state of local sports journalism more generally, has pulled reams of talented sports reporters into The Athletic’s fold. It has around 175 people on its editorial staff.

That operational philosophy has, needless to say, not been sitting well with some journalists.

The launch also coincides with a time when D.C. sports coverage is beefing up: The Washington City Paper launched a new sports section, and another local subscription-based sports site, The Sports Capitol, got off the ground this year. Sports coverage in D.C. has also gotten a boost from the Capitals’ Stanley Cup win and the MLB All-Star game, The Sports Capitol’s Ben Standig told The D.C. Line.

Both The Sports Capitol (whose tagline is “sticking to D.C. sports”) and The Athletic don’t feature advertising, instead relying on monthly or annual subscription fees. The Sports Capitol costs $5.99 per month or $30 every six months, while The Athletic runs readers $9.99 per month, or $3.99 per month with an annual subscription.

It’s unclear what introducing another comprehensive outlet will do to the local sports journalism scene in D.C. But The Athletic’s founders don’t seem bothered by any criticisms tossed their way.

“We are doing great work,” Mather said to the Times. “We treat our writers really well, we pay them well, and we are doing amazing journalism. If someone has a problem with that, that’s on them.”