A former AOL exec has recruited a team of tech veterans to help fund his new sports blogging network. Jim Bankoff, one-time programming chief of AOL, has just secured a “mid-seven-figure sum” of money for SportsBlog Nation (also known as SB Nation), a startup that’s been chugging along under the radar for several months now, according to published reports.
The funding, the Sports Business Journal says , comes from former Yahoo senior executives Dan Rosensweig and Jeff Weiner — who just left Yang and company in June — along with Accel Partners , the company that put up the cash for Facebook. Also on-board are AOL vice chairman emeritus Ted Leonsis and other Silicon Valley finance stars.
SB Nation consists of about 150 individually written and maintained blogs organized by topic — baseball, basketball, college, football, hockey, soccer, or “general.” Each one primarily focuses on a specific team and is run by a writer in the team’s city. According to the Journal , the site retains ownership of all content and then shares ad revenue with its bloggers.
Thus far, the site claims about 2 million unique visitors a month and says some of its blogs rival major media outlets for coverage of particular teams.
