Sports Blog The Big Lead Acquired For “Low Seven Figures” As Content Market Surges

The recent uptick in content site acquisition continues with the acquisition of sports gossip blog The Big Lead by the Fantasy Sports Ventures for “low seven figures.”

The Big Lead pitches itself as a more polite version of Gawker Media sports gossip blog Deadspin, and covers the full gauntlet of American sports.

The New York Times notes in an interview with the founder of The Big Lead that the site had started as an anonymously written blog in 2006 before going on to be named by Sports Illustrated as “one of the five most influential sports blogs of the decade.”

The stats on this deal make it particularly interesting. The owner claims the site does 3 million page views a month, with Alexa and Compete coinge in at 18,618 and 8,306. Those figures are respectable, but it’s rare to see a content acquisition in “low seven figures” at those sorts of numbers, at least in recent years.

We reported earlier today that BuzzMedia had acquired three sites, and now we have yet another deal (along with Forbes/ TrueSlant and Yahoo/ Associated Content.) It’s not impossible that the surge in acquisitions in the content space lately is a blip, and we’ve seen little flurries in the market before; my feeling is that these acquisitions point to a return to a strong market following a serious downturn during the global financial crisis.