Rob Neyer to SB Nation

Color me as one who didn't exactly see this coming...

http://twitter.com/sbnation/status/32454483569025024

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2011/2/1/1967537/rob-neyer-joins-sb-nation-becomes-part-of-us-not-them

 

Is he trying to be ironic here? Or is he serious?

I can't get through the day without scribbling down a brilliant sentence or delightful word in a thick journal that's always close at hand.

 

Great move for SB Nation. Bottom line.

 

I think Neyer says he writes down "brilliant" sentences from other people. Not his. That's the way I read it.

 

Does he turn into a good writer instead of a good analyst just by moving his blog to a different place?

 

On the heels of the AOL FanHouse bombshell, a question: Is there something about SB Nation that makes their ultimate success more likely than Fanhouse's? It looks like they are still relying on funding, which is great in that they can get it but maybe not so great in that this kind of platform should probably be standing on its own legs after so many years. I know SB Nation merges lower-tier bloggers with now high-brow content. But I don't see it being anywhere near as good as Fanhouse, and we all know how that went.

 

I think Fanhouse and SB Nation are hard to compare. Fanhouse relied on one main site and a core of contributors to live. SB Nation relies on its nearly 300 blogs to be successful. While SBNation.com and its regional sites are growing, the blogs are still its legs.

The investors, of course, are huge and continue to roll in. SB Nation is at the top because of its leadership. Jim Bankoff has done a wonderful job steering the company in the right direction.

 

Thanks for the answer, Jim!

 

Taking the company in the right direction = capitalizing on tons of free content that Joe Bloggers provide.

 

NEYER!

 

I know you're kidding, but for the record that wasn't Jim, since we were all sitting in our conference room while that message was posted.

Secondly, there were many things written back when SB Nation got the C round of funding ... this provides a nice sampling:

http://blogswithballs.com/2010/11/what-theyre-saying-about-sb-nations-latest-round-of-funding/

Finally, fwiw ... SB Nation pays its writers and bloggers. So there there's no "tons of free content" provided by Joe Bloggers.

 

Thanks for the reply, John. If I may be so bold, since you're part of the business ...

--Do you pay your bloggers more or less than the 2011 poverty rate of $10,890 for a single person?

--SB Nation is eight years old (based on the founding of A's Nation) and has been getting funding for more than two years now. What are the site's revenues? When do you expect to make a profit? And are you just crossing your fingers hoping the Comcast partnership creates a golden parachute for your site now that Comcast owns NBC?

EDIT: I put no worthin the supposed $90 million "valuation," as those have been shown to bear utterly no relationship to the real world wen assessing media sites.