| 04 February 2011
My next planned blog was going to highlight the shifting content strategies of the major sports portals. It seems that after a decade of imitating ESPN, major players like CBS, NBC, AOL, Fox, and Sporting News have started to embrace new content strategies that veer away from the pre set course that ESPN.com has pioneered.
While there have been multiple subtle but impactful developments involving those companies, SB Nation and Bleacher Report are making the most waves of late as both have recently announced flashy hires on the heels of raising large venture rounds reported to be $10.5 million for each company at mid-high 8 figure valuations.
Content is King...... Kaufman that is (just writing that gimmicky lead makes me face palm)
Bleacher Report led off last week announcing the hiring of King Kaufman.
"He will lead writer development, build and direct online writer education and training resources, and mentor writers......King is an online sports media veteran. For more than ten years, King wrote a daily sports column for Salon.com, ran Salon's internship program and was associate media."
The move has been generally well received although many in the blogosphere have made it a point to voice their skepticism that this will not actually address the lower tier of content the site produces. In the last year 8 months Bleacher Report has moved to an application process, removed writers, and has made the move to compensate writers and other content people on the newsletter side.
Kaufman's hire seems to reinforce the commitment to high quality content as Bleacher Report's content helps fill out coverage on sites like CBS as well as many sports sections for various newspapers.
Although Kaufman's role seems to focus on the development of high quality content, he seems to have also embraced the role as reputation defender of the company as he's active on Twitter looking to turn the sentiment about Bleacher Report around. Up until now, criticism of Bleacher Report has largely been ignored or to some degree swept under the rug. Kaufman and others at Bleacher Report are no longer looking to turn the other cheek when confronted about some of the questionable content that the site produces as well the what many consider their unfair SEO advantage which has been termed "Google Raping SEO".
I think while many respect Kaufman and what he's doing at Bleacher Report, there is still some concern that his hiring only addresses one end of the Bleacher Report content spectrum. Time will tell if lower quality content can be better filtered off the site and if Kaufman can change the content brand of the company by helping develop a deeper and more potent front line of content producers.
For now the consensus is that there a lot of work to be done and maybe more than Kaufman realized he signed up for.
Rob Neyer And ESPN Divorce, Finds New Love with SB Nation
In the other major development, Rob Neyer left ESPN and landed over at SB Nation in a move that seemed to feel like the sports blogosphere equivalency of "The Decision". But Neyer's move didn't suffer the same fan reaction as James as his move to SB Nation has been largely embraced as a massive win for sports blogs while also serving as a jarring kick to the balls for ESPN.
It's not exactly clear what unfolded at ESPN in regards to his departure. Neyer's contract expired and I've heard ESPN didn't renew it, which seems almost unbelievable given his reputation and following. If you read Neyer's opening post on SBN, he makes no bones about feeling out of place at ESPN where the audience was dismissed/ignored and the revered writing talent was above reproach from criticism. If you don't want to read his post (SBN is actually down for maintenance right now too), this clip from Revenge of the Nerds is an accurate portrayal of his post.
Most likely it was a mutual decision as Neyer was looking for change either internally at ESPN or via a new destination. If there is one thing ESPN dismisses more than their audience, it is change and when a new agreement wasn't reached, Neyer was quick to find the loving arms of SB Nation.
The move is significant on many levels including:
- The baseball blogosphere is by far the most mature of any sport. Neyer has been a revered forefather of this space and inspiration to many of the biggest thought leaders. His addition to an already strong network of baseball sites, cements SBN as the leader in original MLB content.
- While there are some impressive voices that have helped build up SBNation.com, Neyer is signature addition to the site that will boost SBNation.com's audience, relevancy, and mind-share.
- ESPN has lost one of their most renown writers.
- ESPN is left in the lurch in regards to the wildly popular SweetSpot blog and team blog network.
- While in the past there has been some ad sales talent to leave ESPN for the likes of sports startups, I don't think we've seen a content person depart The Worldwide Leader for a startup.
The reaction at SBN has been exuberant as the company's early roots were in baseball. Privately I've never sensed the guys over there as prideful as they were with this development and that says a lot considering the many milestones they've reached over the years. I would liken their swagger right now to The Situation after a hearty post drinking meal and subsequent sexual conquest.
ESPN is apparently "close" to naming a replacement and have been allowing SweetSpot network members a chance to guest post until the void is filled.
If you recall, the SweetSpot Network was Neyer's creation and something I was vehemently unsupportive of. I was pretty tough on Rob and even followed up with another critical piece when I discovered that various ESPN network writers were now being bypassed for ESPN advertising efforts in favor of non affiliated ESPN blogs.
I will say though that while I standby everything I wrote in those posts, it is hard to determine where the fault goes between Rob Neyer, Henry Abbot (his NBA counterpart), or the clueless suits who put another bagel on the board by letting Neyer get away.
I can admit my criticism of Neyer was harsh and that a good deal of it could have been more targeted to the old media zealots who have their finger prints all over the current network models that offers minimal value to external content producers who are getting a raw deal.
Neyer's departure and subsequent rallying cry at SBN (who I've long considered an ally and not a foe), does a lot to repair my opinion of him and his potential role in the structure of the SweetSpot network.
ESPN's Poor History With External Networks
The network model has already imploded their college network of sites as only a fraction of sites remain affiliated with ESPN instead opting to move towards independence, Scout, Rivals, or new upstart 24/7. The NBA sites have been ESPN's lone success although I've heard some sites are growing weary of the lack of flexibility in terms of compensation, ability to sell advertising, and lack of choice in terms of implementing ticketing and apparel partners.
SweetSpot right now is in a precarious position. Under a full year of stewardship under Neyer, the network was never able able to fill out a full roster of sites, was rejected by many target sites, and now has more than a handful of either defunct or low quantity content sites. Below is a snippet of what I sent the higher ups at ESPN as they started their misguided foray into building a blog network over a year ago.
"If bloggers continue to find themselves in inferior competitive circumstances due to affiliating themselves with ESPN, you're going to find future advances in the sports blogosphere more difficult with less goodwill from the general blogging community and more writing talent already in exclusive relationships."
It is not really clear how much of Neyer's decision to jump to SBN was because of ESPN's lack of support of the blog networks or his unhappiness with the effort. Given the perfect hire, I don't think ESPN will be able to keep the network afloat.
I would imagine the person they do bring in will be more based around writing pedigree and reputation with added bonus points for anyone who has aspirations of building/maintaining a blog network. Honestly though, there is a lot of work to be done and this is a job requiring 2 roles where candidates interest and strengths just won't overlap much.
Network members I am hearing from are pessimistic at this point. Many got involved with SweetSpot, solely because of Neyer. He's gone, no contingency plan has been unveiled, and their is a lack of faith ESPN will make the network a bigger priority under new management than it was before. Meanwhile some members are hoping to reunite with Neyer at SBN and we're also hearing from some folks who are skittish with the current state of affairs.
I'm probably throwing dirt on the network prematurely though as I also have a similar Situation'esque shit eating grin on my face thinking of some of the more intense philosophical butting of heads I've had with the folks at ESPN.
At the end of the day Neyer made a career choice and it is one that reverberated around the sports blogosphere. Even if the SweetSpot Network does wither away, I think the statement that Neyer made and the perception for sports blogs compared to the mainstream media will far outweigh any harm that the affiliated site endure.
Speaking to one higher up at SBN, he was beaming proud that Neyer's move signaled the true validation of a fan empowered media entity. I certainly concur with that enthusiasm although inroads and major developments like Neyer's unexpected move will have to happen in bunches before fan empowered media begins to cobble way at ESPN's dominance. At a very least though it's moves like these that may begin to flush out the dismissive nature of ESPN's media strategy and decision making process.
I once met with someone who had decades of experience working with ESPN who told me "ESPN doesn't think it's a good idea, unless they came up with it". Almost a decade into the rise of sports blogs, the saying continues to hold true in regards to fan perspective, feedback, and engagement. While you'd like to think that maybe ESPN is beginning to realize the opportunity they're losing out on, I think it's safe to say that the continued growth of the company across the board doesn't necessarily instill an urgency for change. "If it's not broken, then don't fix it". Neyer leaving ESPN is symptoms that while although not broken, their strategy is flimsier than ever before.
As ESPN begins to field more competition from the likes of the big boys (Fox, Comcast, CBS) as well the upstarts below (SB Nation, Bleacher Report, and why not Bloguin), I think it is likely that the dominance of ESPN will start to erode. Neyer's departure coupled with the recent announcement that the unpopular Stephen A Smith is returning to ESPN, serves as a strong indication that change is nowhere to be found on the horizon.
written by Ben Koo, February 09, 2011
Appreciate the thoughtful response and can definitely see the mobilization of resources to improve quality of B/R content. I'd be somewhat interested to know from your perspective, what the impetus was for this mandate of change.
Was it the needs of your partners, advertiser/investor preference, the negative chatter including the "nasty SBN choir", fear of shifting Search methodologies, or just internal preference to move in that direction. At a high level when did you guys feel the need to make this the priority and why?
I think that would be very telling and helpful insight to readers who may have already made up their mind about Bleacher Report.
Again, I appreciate the note and am glad you guys frequent the site.
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written by Bryan Goldberg, February 09, 2011
Easy answer. It was internal preference — or, more accurately — internal determination. We're our own biggest critics, and that's always how it will be.
With regard to quality, the goal has always been a simple one: to provide readers with the most entertaining coverage of the teams and topics that they care about. It's a simple goal, but a big one. And big goals are not achieved without innovation — and in the case of Media — completely changing the game. That is why we re-wrote the rule book on how content is created, and why we spent most of our early days building an incredible platform.
That being said, growth is its own biggest challenge. And we grew fast. This company launched in 2008, and took off like a rocket. Our platform attracted a lot of aspiring writers in a very short period of time, and in a sense, we tapped into something even bigger than we could have imagined. At that time, we had very little money, and very little manpower. The following year, we hired a large editorial team, but even they had their hands full with the thousands of stories published weekly. They accomplished a great deal, but viral growth can't be solved over night. We got many things right, and, yes, we got some things wrong. Also, some of our biggest moves should have been made earlier. We get that.
The Bleacher Report that exists today is completely different from the one that existed eighteen months ago, and any honest reader will tell you that quality has improved markedly even in the last ninety days. The exciting moves that you have observed in your blog are real, and they will keep coming. The biggest moves are ahead of us.
It took us some time to catch up with our growth — we know that. And we accept that some readers will always view us in relation to our 'growing pain' years. Accommodating and curating content on this scale in this timeframe was a Herculean task. But that's what we set our sites on… big challenges. You don't change a centuries-old media landscape without taking on massive challenges.
It would have been easier to go raise a big venture round and buy up a bunch of blogs. Somebody else went and did that. And they did a great job. But can you truly change the media landscape with a move like that? I don't think that you can. It's easier. It's lower risk. It scales more gracefully. And most critically: It brings you positive results earlier on. But we are thinking bigger than that, even if we are only part-way through the vision.
Bleacher Report is an amazing media company. Our competitors set out to climb hills, and most of them reached the top as planned. We set out to climb a mountain, and the view from the summit will be incredible.
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written by RoneFace, February 10, 2011
I also think it's naive to think that criticism of B/R is/was found only among the "noisy and nasty choir of SBN bloggers." I've seen a lot of negative commentary on the quality of B/R content on Twitter and other sites that have no connection to SBN whatsoever. There's a Twitter account called veryfakeBR that has almost 1,700 followers for God's sake. I'm not one of them but I've seen several media members retweet some of those tweets. Here are 2 examples just from the last few hours:
SLIDHOSW: faverite olive Garden commercils that the daughter from Modern Family is in
SLIDSHOW: what Ohlendorf's one wins means to the Pirets in 2011
An account like this wouldn't gain any traction or any followers if there wasn't at least some degree of truth in the commentary.
I would also question where these 2 posts, written by a "senior writer" and "featured columnist" respectively, fit into the concept of climbing a mountain and taking on a "centuries-old media landscape":
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/307887-top-10-best-boobs-in-mma
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/567657-the-hottest-underboobs-in-sports
We both know I could come up with dozens of similar links but those are just two I came upon quickly. This is not to demean or trivialize your many accomplishments but I do think that if the goal is to take on SBN or the more established media groups the mountain you're climbing may be higher than you're suggesting with these comments.
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written by Bryan Goldberg, February 10, 2011
The person known as 'veryfakebr' — a sports blogger who writes for one of our competitors — has garnered over a thousand followers in a few MONTHS time... we get about 4,000 new newsletter subscribers every single DAY, most of whom read the thing religiously and tell their friends about it.
The bloggers who dislike us are very loud, and very much a minority. But I'm glad they're out there. Because I want to push us to improve, and I'll take feedback any way that I can get it. It's actually quite interesting and useful to hear what our competitors are saying about us.
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written by Steve Paulo, February 11, 2011
I really don't think anyone could have foreseen Bleacher Report's ascension to become the 5th largest sports website there is.
4th
http://spaulo.s3.amazonaws.com/jan-comscore.png
Steve Paulo
Frontend Engineer
Bleacher Report
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written by Tom Jackson, February 17, 2011
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written by PPP, February 23, 2011
Minority of overall consumers of B/R? Probably. Minority of those with a clue? Not really.
The person known as 'veryfakebr' — a sports blogger who writes for one of our competitors — has garnered over a thousand followers in a few MONTHS time... we get about 4,000 new newsletter subscribers every single DAY, most of whom read the thing religiously and tell their friends about it.
Why not out them rather than leave the insinuation out there staining all of your 'competitors'?
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The team at Bleacher Report is focused on quality, and we have spent many months taking *real* action with regard to what you might call the 'longtail'. As you mention, we've removed a large percentage of our writers. We now let only a tiny fraction of applicants into the writing community, and when they do join, they are immediately connected with our editorial team.
Bringing in King Kaufman is exciting for a lot of reasons. He's a fantastic writer with a passionate voice. He is respected across the industry. He will be a great mentor for our new writers, and he will be working hard to further improve our strongest writers -- of which there are many. And he's fun to have around the office.
But there's no reason to think that hiring King is in any way mutually exclusive with our constant and ongoing efforts to raise the bar for each and every article. The bar for becoming a writer, and the bar for staying a writer, will both go up -- a lot. We are hiring many more copy editors. We are improving the extent to which we work hand-in-hand with our existing writers. And, yes, we have re-explored our compensation model in some cases.
Our voice will continue to be our voice -- and people can embrace or oppose that as they like. We want to be the most fun and entertaining sports site on the web, and that has been our mission for a long time. If readers' expectations are otherwise, then that is their misinterpretation of our very clear voice.
There's only one part of your article that is dead wrong. We do not "sweep" anything under the rug. We *have* responded to the noisy and nasty choir of SBNation bloggers who trash us on Twitter and from the safety of their own message boards. We hear them loud and clear. We have not responded with our words — we've responded with our actions. We have no desire to get into a petty quarrel. We're not going to turn the the other cheek, but we will keep walking. Fast.
And while their team has spent the better part of a year throwing rocks, we've spent the last year growing our newsletter subscription base well into the seven-figures. We spent the last year increasing our daily Direct Traffic much faster than our daily Search Traffic. We spent the last year removing writers, shrinking our content output, and focusing on quality -- while still growing at a breathtaking pace. We spent the last year recruiting incredible talent at all levels of our organization — editors, executives, engineers, etc. Hiring King Kaufman is just one more success story.
Cheers,
Bryan Goldberg
Co-Founder, Bleacher Report