Predicting what will become of sports journalism's most fascinating experiment, The Athletic, is a fruitless endeavor, as the company has kept its intentions close to the vest. However, one of sports media's more-accomplished advisors Dave VanEgmond speculated to Front Office Sports that a partnership with NBC Universal could be a powerful fit to continue NBC's foray into subscription models as well as The Athletic's recovery from COVID.

"(The Athletic) makes a lot of sense for those businesses as people move into subscriptions," he told FOS. "If everyone is buying Peacock because it has a lot of sports content, it would make sense for NBC — which has no real digital assets in sports other than the failed Rotoworld experiment — to do something. I think you could say the same for a bunch of companies."

The Athletic, considered a sports content behemoth, was valued at $500 million in early 2020 until the pandemic hit pause on seemingly all of the sports world. That massive roadblock led to an 8 percent layoff of its workforce.

If NBC does partner with The Athletic, it would be a powerful teammate to assist in its growth of its sports programming ranging from the NFL to golf, horse racing, and more.