SB Nation
SB Nation is a sports blogging network owned by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Tyler Blezinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong in 2003. The blog from which the network formed was started by Bleszinski as Athletics Nation in 2003, and focused solely on the Oakland Athletics. It later expanded to cover sports franchises on a national scale, including all Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, and National Football League teams, as well as college teams, mixed martial arts and professional wrestling, and more, totaling over 300 community sites at its peak. The coverage style of SB Nation’s communities has an emphasis on covering sports from the perspective of fans.
In 2011, the network expanded into technology content with The Verge, leading to the parent company Sports Blogs Inc. being rebranded as Vox Media. SB Nation operates from Vox Media's offices in New York City and Washington, D.C.
Corporate affairs and business model
From 2003 to 2011, the sports blog network SB Nation operated under the parent company SportsBlogs Inc., which was headquartered in Washington, D.C. Since Sports Blogs was rebranded as Vox Media, the network has also operated from the digital media company's offices in Manhattan. Vox Media's chief executive officer, Jim Bankoff, has served as SB Nation CEO since 2009.SB Nation's community sites cover specific sports, individual teams, or college athletics programs. They are staffed by a combination of full-time employees and part-time contractors paid through monthly stipends or unpaid. These contributors cover game previews and recaps, analysis, breaking news, and more. Some have even produced regular podcast episodes. The sites encourage their readers to contribute to discussions on the sites. The network generates revenue through advertising.
History
Founding and growth
SB Nation was co-founded by friends Tyler Bleszinski and Markos Moulitsas in 2003. The single blog from which the network formed was launched by Bleszinski as Athletics Nation in July 2003, and covered only the Oakland Athletics baseball team. Athletics Nation quickly became Blogads's second largest website, following Daily Kos, where Moulitsas served as an editor. Following the blog network's creation, six additional writers were hired to join Bleszinski in creating content, and Daily Kos' platform was implemented to encourage online community growth. Established bloggers were selected to contribute articles, and sports fans could leave comments. After sites were created for all Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, and National Hockey League franchises, along with some college and other teams, Bleszinski focused on company growth and making money.In 2008, SB Nation raised $5 million in a Series A round of financing with Accel Partners, Allen & Company, and Ted Leonsis contributing. Jim Bankoff, who was advising the company during the venture round, became SB Nation CEO in January 2009. The network had approximately 1 million unique users, 5 million unique users, and nearly 185 blogs by February. The NHL sanctioned and began linking to SB Nation content on its official website in April, when the network was averaging 5 million unique monthly visitors across nearly 200 sites. In July, Comcast's venture capital branch, Comcast Interactive Capital, spearheaded a nearly $8 million second round of financing. In September 2009, SB Nation was re-launched to serve as a nationally focused portal for the network's blogs. Revenue generated by the network increased by four times in 2009.
In 2010, the network launched 20 regional sites, bringing the total number of sites to nearly 275. SB Nation had 31 full-time employees and was receiving 40 million monthly page views by approximately 8 million unique users, as of mid 2010. Comcast SportsNet and SB Nation agreed to a content sharing partnership in shared markets in June 2010. In July 2010, SB Nation announced it had acquired The Sporting Blog from Sporting News and would merge it with its main website. In November, Khosla Ventures led a third round of funding for SB Nation, bringing the company's total funding to approximately $23 million.
SB Nation acquired the blog networks FanTake and The Offside in March 2011, expanding its coverage of college sports and soccer, respectively. The network hired several Engadget employees to launch its first major expansion outside sports.
Formation of Vox Media
SB Nation parent company, SportsBlogs Inc., rebranded as Vox Media in October 2011 and The Verge launched in November 2011. In late 2011, MMAFighting.com was integrated into SB Nation after Vox Media acquired the mixed martial arts site from AOL. MMA Fighting produces The MMA Hour and The MMA Beat, which continue to stream on SB Nation and social media outlets, as of 2017.In September 2012, SB Nation introduced a major redesign codenamed "SB United", which introduced a new "magazine-style" layout with a larger focus on long-form content and digital media, and redesigned logos for each of the network's approximately 300 blogs. The redesign was overseen by Spencer Hall, the site's first editorial director.
The LGBT sports website Outsports was acquired by Vox Media and integrated into SB Nation in March 2013. The site's founders retained editorial control, and the purchase marked the first time a major sports media company acquired an LGBT-focused website. SB Nation was averaging approximately 50 million unique visitors by mid 2013, and had approximately 800 contributing bloggers by the end of the year. Bleszinski left the company at the end of 2015.
Holtzclaw controversy
In February 2016, the site published a lengthy profile of Daniel Holtzclaw, a former police officer convicted of multiple accounts of rape and other charges, focusing on his college football career. The piece, which was seen as sympathetic to Holtzclaw, was heavily criticized and was taken down within hours of publication. SB Nation editorial director Spencer Hall apologized for "a complete breakdown" of SB Nation editorial process, and described the story and its publication as a "complete failure" of site standards. SB Nation subsequently cut ties with the story's author, freelance journalist Jeff Arnold, and put its longform program on hiatus pending a peer review of the editorial process that led to the Holtzclaw piece being published. The head of the longform program, veteran sportswriter Glenn Stout, was suspended and later fired.In May 2016, Vox Media published the results of the peer review. It found that the longform program was isolated from the rest of SB Nation in a way that made it impossible for stories to be properly vetted. It also harshly criticized SB Nation for not giving individual editors the authority to review stories about sensitive topics. At the time, sensitive stories were reviewed by the newsroom's two most senior women, senior editor Elena Bergeron and senior content producer Sarah Kogod. The reviewers found that this practice made it appear that an individual editor did not have the responsibility to "care to the fullest extent about matters of ethics, integrity, and accuracy." It also raised concerns about the lack of diversity in the newsroom. Based on the review, SB Nation permanently shelved the longform program, replacing it with a features program. SB Nation also announced it would take steps to diversify its newsroom. In a statement, SB Nation said that the Holtzclaw situation revealed that "an organization cannot afford to wait to be diverse, particularly if that organization is one that wants to tell stories."
Partnership with the Ringer
In May 2017, the sports and culture website The Ringer transferred its publishing platform from Medium to Vox Media's Chorus platform. The site's founder, Bill Simmons, retained ownership and editorial control. The Ringer parent company, Bill Simmons Media Group, and Vox Media agreed to share revenue generated by advertisements sold by Vox Media. Vox Media began sharing audience traffic between SB Nation and The Ringer. In August, the site underwent a revamp to match other SB Nation websites.The Ringer, and its podcast network, were purchased by Spotify in 2020.
Accusations of exploitation
In the wake of the Holtzclaw controversy, Elena Bergeron was named SB Nation first editor-in-chief in March 2017. In August, Deadspin published a report detailing SB Nation's reliance on underpaid and unpaid labor from site managers and contributors. Bergeron was quoted in the story, stating that it was "company policy that everybody who contributes for a Vox Media property gets paid." Several site managers who were interviewed for the same story were not aware of this policy.In September 2017, a former site manager filed a collective action lawsuit against Vox Media contending that they were a misclassified employee. Three separate lawsuits were eventually condensed into one. The company ultimately agreed to pay $4 million to 450 writers and site managers to settle the case in August 2020.
Nine months after the initial Deadspin report, SB Nation had hired additional staff to provide greater support to team sites, increased the budgets for some sites, converted several part-time employees to full-time status, and added greater restrictions on the use of unpaid contributors.
In November 2017, Vox Media staff announced it was forming a labor union in association with Writers Guild of America, East. Though full-time SB Nation staff members were included, part-time bloggers and site managers were not. Vox Media Union ratified its first contract in June 2019.