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Screenshot  SB Nation homepage | |
Type of site | Sports news |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Vox Media |
| URL | sbnation |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional (required for comments/posting) |
| Launched | 2003; 22 years ago (2003) |
| Current status | Active |
SB Nation (an abbreviation for their full nameSportsBlogs Nation) is a sports blogging network owned byVox Media. It was co-founded by Tyler Blezinski,Markos Moulitsas, andJerome Armstrong in 2003. The blog from which the network formed was started by Bleszinski asAthletics Nation in 2003, and focused solely on theOakland Athletics. It later expanded to cover sports franchises on a national scale, including allMajor League Baseball,National Basketball Association, andNational Football League teams, as well as college teams,mixed martial arts andprofessional wrestling, and more, totaling over 300 community sites at its peak. The coverage style of SB Nation’s communities have an emphasis on covering sports from the perspective of fans.
In 2011, the network expanded into technology content withThe Verge, leading to the parent company Sports Blogs Inc. being rebranded as Vox Media.SB Nation operates from Vox Media's offices inNew York City andWashington, D.C.
From 2003 to 2011, the sports blog networkSB Nation (originally known asSportsBlogs Nation) operated under the parent company SportsBlogs Inc., which was headquartered inWashington, D.C.[1][2] Since Sports Blogs was rebranded asVox Media, the network has also operated from thedigital media company's offices inManhattan.[3] Vox Media'schief executive officer,Jim Bankoff, has served asSB Nation's CEO since 2009.[4]
SB Nation's community sites cover specific sports, individual teams, or colleges athletics programs. They are staffed by a combination of full-time employees and part-time contractors paid through a monthly stipends or unpaid.[5][1] 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.[6] The network generates revenue through advertising.[7]
SB Nation was co-founded by friends Tyler Bleszinski andMarkos Moulitsas in 2003. The single blog from which the network formed was launched by Bleszinski asAthletics Nation in July 2003, and covered only theOakland Athletics baseball team.[3]Athletics Nation quickly became Blogads's second largest website, followingDaily Kos, where Moulitsas served as an editor.[8] Following the blog network's creation, six additional writers were hired to join Bleszinski in creating content, and Daily Kos' platform was implemented to encourageonline community growth.[8] Established bloggers were selected to contribute articles, and sports fans could leave comments. After sites were created for allMajor League Baseball (MLB),National Basketball Association (NBA),National Football League (NFL), andNational Hockey League (NHL) franchises, along with some college and other teams, Bleszinski focused on company growth and making money.[8]
In 2008,SB Nation raised $5 million in aSeries A round of financing withAccel Partners,Allen & Company, andTed Leonsis contributing.[9] Jim Bankoff, who was advising the company during theventure round, becameSB Nation's CEO in January 2009.[1][8] The network had approximately 1 million unique users, 5 million unique users, and nearly 185 blogs by February.[9][5] The NHL sanctioned and began linking toSB Nation content on its official website in April, when the network was averaging 5 million unique monthly visitors across nearly 200 sites.[9] In July,Comcast'sventure capital branch, Comcast Interactive Capital, spearheaded a nearly $8 million second round of financing.[8][10] In September 2009,SB Nation was re-launched to serve as a nationally focused portal for the network's blogs.[8] Revenue generated by the network increased by four times in 2009.[1]
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.[1]Comcast SportsNet andSB Nation agreed to a content sharing partnership in shared markets in June 2010.[10] In July 2010, SB Nation announced it had acquired The Sporting Blog fromSporting News and would merge it with its main website.[11] In November,Khosla Ventures led a third round of funding forSB Nation,[2] bringing the company's total funding to approximately $23 million.[5]
SB Nation acquired the blog networks FanTake and The Offside in March 2011, expanding its coverage of college sports and soccer, respectively.[12] The network hired severalEngadget employees to launch its first major expansion outside sports.[2][8]
SB Nation's parent company, SportsBlogs Inc., rebranded asVox Media in October 2011 andThe Verge launched in November 2011.[13][8][2] In late 2011,MMAFighting.com was integrated into SB Nation after Vox Media acquired themixed martial arts site from AOL.[14] MMA Fighting producesThe MMA Hour andThe MMA Beat, which continue to stream onSB Nation and social media outlets, as of 2017.[15][16]
In September 2012,SB Nation introduced a major redesign codenamed "SB United", which introduced a new "magazine-style" layout with a larger focus onlong-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.[17]
TheLGBT sports websiteOutsports was acquired by Vox Media and integrated intoSB Nation in March 2013.[18] The site's founders retained editorial control, and the purchase marked the first time a major sports media company acquired an LGBT-focused website.[19]SB Nation was averaging approximately 50 million unique visitors by mid 2013,[3][20] and had approximately 800 contributing bloggers by the end of the year.[21] Bleszinski left the company at the end of 2015.[22]
In February 2016, the site published a lengthy profile ofDaniel 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's editorial director Spencer Hall apologized for "a complete breakdown" ofSB Nation's editorial process, and described the story and its publication as a "complete failure" of site standards.[23][24][25]SB Nation subsequently cut ties with the story's author, freelance journalist Jeff Arnold, and put itslongform program on hiatus pending a peer review of the editorial process that led to the Holtzclaw piece being published.[26] The head of the longform program, veteran sportswriter Glenn Stout, was suspended and later fired.[27]
In May 2016, Vox Media published the results of the peer review. It found that the longform program was isolated from the rest ofSB Nation in a way that made it impossible for stories to be properly vetted. It also harshly criticizedSB 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.[28] 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."[29]
In May 2017, the sports and culture websiteThe Ringer transferred its publishing platform fromMedium to Vox Media's Chorus platform. The site's founder,Bill Simmons, retained ownership and editorial control.[30][31]The Ringer's parent company, Bill Simmons Media Group, and Vox Media agreed to share revenue generated by advertisements sold by Vox Media.[32][33] Vox Media began sharing audience traffic betweenSB Nation andThe Ringer.[34] In August, the site underwent a revamp to match other SB Nation websites.[35]
The Ringer, and its podcast network, were purchased bySpotify in 2020.[36]
In the wake of the Holtzclaw controversy, Elena Bergeron was namedSB Nation's first editor-in-chief in March 2017.[37][38] 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.[39][40]
In September 2017, a former site manager filed a collective action lawsuit against Vox Media contending that they were a misclassified employee.[41] 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.[42]
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.[43]
In November 2017, Vox Media staff announced it was forming a labor union in association withWriters Guild of America, East. Though full-time SB Nation staff members were included, part-time bloggers and site managers were not.[44] Vox Media Union ratified its first contract in June 2019.[45]
In February 2018, Vox Medialaid off 50 employees, including some members of theSB Nation social video team. A number of part-time copy editors and news writers were also cut.[46][47]
In February 2019, it was announced that Bergeron would step down from her role as editor-in-chief, remaining until a replacement was hired.[48] In July, Vox announced it would hire a senior vice president to oversee SB Nation.[49] It wasn't until 16 months later, in October 2020, that the company finally promoted Jermaine Spradley to SVP.[50]
In August 2019, after closing its national college football blogEvery Day Should Be Saturday (which joined the platform in 2010 after originally being established in 2005 as an independent website),SB Nation announced a new college football vertical known asBanner Society, which will aim to " keep expanding, warping, and sharpening the conversation around college football in all its bizarre, corrupt, colorful elements", and "find new and different ways to connect with our audience directly, all over the internet".[51][52] In September, SB Nation launched DK Network, a dedicated sports gambling website in conjunction withDraftKings.[53]
In December 2019, Vox Media announced that in order to comply withCalifornia Assembly Bill 5,SB Nation would "end our contracts with most contractors at California brands" over the coming months, and transfer their roles to a new group of employees. The company stated that this would be an extension of investments that have seen more full-time employees working for the network's largest sites, and that former contractors would be able to contribute as unpaid "community insiders".[54]
On April 17, 2020, in response to theCOVID-19 pandemic, Vox Media announced it would furlough 9% of its workforce starting May 1, 2020, includingSB Nation.[55] By June, a number of writers and editors from Banner Society left the company through buyouts.[56] In July, the company laid off 6% of the company, including many of those who had already been furloughed. An internal memo mentioned that Vox was only bringing back 30% of its furloughed workers.[57] In September 2022, the company shut down a number of sites focused on college sports.
In January 2023, Vox announced another round of layoffs, affecting 7% of its staff. The cuts hit SB Nation hard, with a majority of the company's hockey and soccer sites becoming unaffiliated or being shut down completely.[58][59] Women's ice hockey site The Ice Garden became an independent site with more financial backing than SB Nation had been providing.[60] MMA siteBloody Elbow was sold to its original founder in March.[61] In April, Sacramento Kings site Sactown Royalty was sold off to its original founder and Chicago Bulls site BlogABull moved toSubstack in April. By August, Sounder at Heart, one of only two soccer sites to remain, left SB Nation and transitioned to a reader-supported model.[62]
Despite these cuts, SB Nation also expanded. It launched a new golf website in May[63] and its first paid newsletters, focusing on theDetroit Lions andKansas City Chiefs in August.[64]
Spradley, who had been serving as publisher since March 2022, left the company in January 2024.[65] In March, Vox Media divestedOutsports to LGBT-oriented publisher Q Digital, with the site's co-founders receiving an equity stake in the company.[66] In April 2024, Vox Media shut down the website's podcast network.[67]
In May 2016,SB Nation created an online video series forNBC Sports aroundNBC Sunday Night Football.[68] The network expanded intoradio programming in mid-2016 through a partnership with Gow Media.[69]SB Nation sold its first original television program,Foul Play, toVerizon Communications'go90, in September. The network was averaging approximately 70 million unique monthly visitors at this time.[70]Foul Play premiered in May 2018.[71]
In July 2017, SB Nation published17776, serializedspeculative fiction multimedia narrative byJon Bois.[72] A sequel, called20020, was published in 2020.[73]
In January 2018,SB Nation andEater aired an online three-episode celebrity cooking competition series sponsored byPepsiCo. The show featuredNational Football League playersGreg Jennings,Rashad Jennings, andNick Mangold as competitors, as well as chefsAnne Burrell andJosh Capon.[74][75]
In 2018, SB Nation launched its podcast network, beginning with its NFL team sites and expanding to cover every major sports team.[76][77][78] In October, SB Nation launched its first storytelling podcast, “It Seemed Smart,” a six-part series hosted by Spencer Hall.[79]
SB Nation also maintains a YouTube channel which publishes regular web series by a variety of online hosts and content editors including Jon Bois, Will Buikema, Ryan Simmons, Seth Rosenthal, Kofie Yeboah, Mike Imhoff, Clara Morris and many others. In August 2020, SB Nation's YouTube channel was renamed to Secret Base.[80][81]
The series produced on the channel include:
Alongside these ongoing series, the channel has also published a number of multi-episode sports documentaries, including "The History of the Seattle Mariners" in 2020, "The History of the Atlanta Falcons" in 2021, and “The People You’re Paying to Be in Shorts” in 2022, among others.[82]
In May 2024, the company launched Top Secret Base, a paid subscription onPatreon.[83]
In 2011,Time includedSB Nation in their list of "50 Websites That Make the Web Great".[84]SB Nation was a finalist in the seventh annualShorty Awards' "fansite" category (2015),[85][86] and received aNational Magazine Award (or Ellie Award) in the "Digital Innovation" category in 2018 as the publisher ofJon Bois' narrative,17776.[87][88] After20020 was released in September–October 2020, a third edition,20021, was set to be released in 2021, but no release date has been set.
Letterboxd namedJon Bois' and Alex Rubenstein's collaborative documentary on the history of theSeattle Mariners the highest rated documentary miniseries of 2020,[89] andThe New York Times listed its first episode, "This is not an endorsement of arson", as one of the best episodes of TV of 2020.[90] In 2021, Secret Base won a 2021Webby Award for itsBeef History series.[91]
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