In January, we reported on the launch of The Athletic, a subscription-only sports news startup that had raised $2.1 million in its seed funding round. Using a hard paywall, The Athletic website and mobile app launched in January in two markets – Chicago and Toronto – with a goal of expanding to new markets if it took off.

The Athletic has now expanded into Cleveland, Detroit and the San Francisco Bay area, and it looks like Philadelphia is next. Fast forward to July and The Athletic has raised another $5.4 million in funding, according to CrunchBase, bringing the total raised in three funding rounds to $7.7 million from eight investors.

With a subscription ($7.99 per month if paid monthly, or $3.99 per month if paid annually), sports fans can get their fix of ad-free “premium sports journalism” including sports news and exclusive content like articles, podcasts, photos, interviews, Q&A sessions and more. According to TechCrunch, The Athletic has hired top quality sports writers to produce five to 10 pieces of content daily with an emphasis on the top sports teams in each city. In Chicago, for example, the stories and related content are centered around the World Champion Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Bulls, the White Sox, Chicago Bears and the Chicago Blackhawks. [Note: TechCrunch reports different pricing than what appears on The Athletic’s Plans page. They may be running a special.]

What makes The Athletic unique? Much of it is the quality of talent they’ve acquired. In addition to hiring popular local sports writers in the cities they cover, The Athletic recently hired Paul Fichtenbaum, former editor-in-chief for Sports Illustrated Group, reports Nieman Lab. On July 24, Fichtenbaum (@fichtenbaum) tweeted that he was hired as The Athletic’s new Chief Content Officer. The Athletic also hired Steward Mandel as editor-in-chief of a new subscription site for national college football, developed by The Athletic.

Nieman Lab’s Christine Schmidt describes The Athletic’s venture this way:

“Instead of treating sports like the cherry on top of a vegetable sundae in the traditional style of newspapers bundling local news content, they’re betting that people will pay more for just top-notch sports coverage. And instead of selling advertising – that’s right, it’s foregoing ads across its websites – The Athletic is relying on loyal subscribers,” writes Schmidt.

Insider Take:

It is always exciting to see a niche take the subscription model and use it to create something innovative. No, a sports news site isn’t innovative, per se, but in the case of The Athletic, the founders are creating something unique that has gotten lost in the race for finding a publishing business model that works. The Athletic isn’t relying on advertising revenue, annoying pop-up ads or auto-play videos to snag a reader’s attention for 30 seconds. Instead, it is relying on a well-established niche of diehard sports fans that want deeper, more exclusive coverage than they can get elsewhere.

Let’s look at Chicago, for example. In addition to the major TV networks, Chicago has a number of magazines, websites and two major newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Each of those entities is trying to serve a broad audience with a variety of different content – news, weather, arts and entertainment, sports, etc. Sports is only one segment of what those media outlets provide. The Athletic, on the other hand, has specialized and is banking on the idea that true sports fans will pay for exclusive, quality coverage. They’re probably right.

Though Nieman Lab indicates The Athletic is only profitable in one of its markets so far, it is early days. The company launched in January ,and it is growing organically and finding its way. With another $5.4 million under its belt, it has a lot of room for experimentation. No one can expect it to be profitable this early on. After all, if it is was easy, everyone would be doing it, right?