The short answer
The Athletic, 1 Aug 2025 to 31 Jul 2026
14.0 push notifications on a typical active day (median; the mean is 13.8). Over the last twelve months The Athletic sent 2,824 notifications, pushing on 204 of 365 days. Its busiest hour is 05:00 local time, and its biggest single day was 2026-02-02, with 43 pushes.
The daily clock
All of The Athletic's pushes from the last twelve months, on United States's clock. The red bar is the busiest hour, 05:00.
The Athleticpeak 05:0033.6% of The Athletic's notifications land between 22:00 and 07:00. For when the whole country's apps push, and the quiet windows between them, see the United States timing guide.
The week
An average weekday carries 13.7 The Athletic pushes and a weekend day 14.3.
How The Athletic writes a push
| Habit | The Athletic | United States median |
|---|---|---|
| Title length (median characters) | 26 | 13 |
| Body text length (median characters) | 80 | 86 |
| Pushes with no title at all | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Contains an emoji | 5.6% | 0.0% |
| Contains an exclamation mark | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| Phrased as a question | 20.3% | 4.5% |
Aggregates over every The Athletic notification in the window. The norms across all newsrooms, and which countries love emoji, are in how newsrooms write push notifications.
Versus other United States apps
Every United States news app in the dataset, ranked by twelve-month push volume. The Athletic is highlighted.
| # | App | Pushes / 12 mo | Per active day | Peak hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Breaking News | 17,763 | 45.0 | 14:00 |
| 2 |  NYPost | 5,135 | 14.0 | 11:00 |
| 3 |  SCMP | 4,351 | 28 | 07:00 |
| 4 |  Mercury News | 2,846 | 8.0 | 11:00 |
| 5 | The Athletic | 2,824 | 14.0 | 05:00 |
| 6 |  AP News | 2,619 | 9 | 12:00 |
| 7 |  AOL | 2,126 | 6.0 | 08:00 |
| 8 |  ABC13 | 1,766 | 4.0 | 08:00 |
| 9 |  Bloomberg | 1,752 | 5 | 11:00 |
| 10 |  NBC NEWS | 1,547 | 7.0 | 07:00 |
| 11 |  HuffPost | 1,462 | 11.0 | 11:00 |
| 12 |  Epoch Times | 1,392 | 7 | 08:00 |
| 13 |  Washington Post | 1,315 | 6.0 | 18:00 |
| 14 |  NYTimes | 1,219 | 5 | 01:00 |
| 15 |  TribLive | 1,209 | 9.0 | 09:00 |
| 16 |  CBS News | 1,199 | 8.0 | 15:00 |
| 17 |  Al Jazeera | 1,112 | 5 | 02:00 |
| 18 |  BBC | 1,094 | 3.0 | 07:00 |
| 19 |  POLITICO | 1,057 | 5 | 12:00 |
| 20 |  NPR | 1,049 | 6 | 14:00 |
| 21 |  CNBC | 909 | 3.0 | 16:00 |
| 22 |  Seattle Times Mobile | 897 | 5 | 13:00 |
| 23 |  St. Louis Post-Dispatch | 843 | 9 | 09:00 |
| 24 |  ABC News | 812 | 4.0 | 15:00 |
| 25 |  Philly Inquirer | 697 | 5 | 18:00 |
| 26 |  WSJ | 650 | 4 | 21:00 |
| 27 |  OREGONLIVE | 601 | 5.0 | 11:00 |
| 28 |  Reuters | 402 | 3 | 08:00 |
| 29 |  ABC7LA | 371 | 4 | 01:00 |
| 30 |  The Atlantic | 367 | 3 | 12:00 |
| 31 |  Sacramento Bee | 348 | 3.0 | 11:00 |
| 32 |  The Kansas City Star | 341 | 4 | 11:00 |
| 33 |  The Charlotte Observer | 322 | 4 | 09:00 |
| 34 |  Syracuse.com | 311 | 3 | 07:00 |
| 35 |  Newsmax | 246 | 2.0 | 10:00 |
| 36 |  Honolulu Star-Advertiser | 230 | 2 | 13:00 |
| 37 |  Arkansas Online-The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | 211 | 2.0 | 10:00 |
| 38 |  inkl news | 197 | 1 | 01:00 |
| 39 |  Lexington Herald-Leader | 118 | 2.0 | 15:00 |
| 40 |  HBR | 116 | 2 | 15:00 |
| 41 |  The State | 103 | 2 | 09:00 |
Method
AO.news runs a fleet of phones with hundreds of news apps installed and every notification switched on; each push is recorded the moment it lands. This page counts the 2,824 notifications The Athletic sent from 1 Aug 2025 to 31 Jul 2026, stamped in America/New_York local time. Front-page headline robots are excluded, and the window always ends at the last complete month, so these figures update monthly rather than live. Two honest caveats: an app added to our phones mid-window shows artificially quiet early months, and a push sent only to a personalised or regional segment may not reach our devices. This page shows aggregates only, never the notifications themselves; the live stream is in the deck.