Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: January 15, 2009
Tags : blogging, sb nation
Sports blogging network SB Nation has raised $5 million in a round that included Accel Partners and Allen & Co
The SB Nation blog network was founded by Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas in 2003 and has over 150 sites covering geospecific sporting coverage of American sports teams.
Sports blogs have always been a difficult vertical. Audiences are fractured by geography and personal likes, so individual blogs need to work extra hard to build audiences from a small pool of potential readers. There has been an increased interest in the space over the last few years as advertisers and franchise owners looked at new ways to reach fans online, often resulting in high CPM rates for those lucky enough to get a look in.
The network, like The Daily Kos is powered by niche blogging platform Scoop
(via PaidContent).
Jan 15, 2009
I don't agree with this statement at all: “Sports blogs have always been a difficult vertical. Audiences are fractured by geography and personal likes, so individual blogs need to work extra hard to build audiences from a small pool of potential readers”.
With sports blogs, actually it's totally the opposite.
1. Sports are geographic (this is their beauty in terms of the traffic's potential to be monetised). The sports people are passionate about in Australia are totally different to those in the US, UK, Europe etc. This is not the same with most content areas, such as technology, pop-culture…which are largely non-geographic in their appeal. H
ave a look at a successful sports blog like The Roar in Australia (http://www.theroar.com.au) or YardBarker in the US for examples.
2. Sports attract a massive audience in that almost everyone has an opinion on sports. In countries like Australia, it's a national past time. Look at the Super Bowl's audience….etc etc.
Jan 16, 2009
SB Nation no longer powered by Scoop. Has its own killer platform optimized for sports blogging and community management.