Operating a press in a dangerous factory for 16 hours a day is not quite the same as sportswriting. You don’t like the fact that there are millions of people who would do your job for free? Get a job that people won’t do for free.

Remember that you’re talking about sportswriting. This isn’t neurosurgery. Any dolt with a keyboard can do it, therefore, any dolt with a keyboard does it. There are literally millions of people (supply=high) that want the same job (demand=low), which forces prices down. That’s the way the world works.

Are the people who write for tay.kinja.com paid this minimum salary?

You’re also a small and targeted organization with a full-time staff of what? 50? 100?

We should unionize, and see how Deadspin responds. Something tells me they would welcome scab commenters with open arms.

Still, no one is forcing these writers to do it. If 99% of these SB Nation site managers suddenly quit tomorrow, the stipends, salaries or budgets would increase monumentally. But they don’t do it do they? Why?

That’s dangerous logic. Is everyone who worked at Wells Fargo an asshole because the company had shady sales practices? I worked in financial services for a long time, an industry propped up by fees and upselling. Hell, any corporate employee is probably in the same boat. But I also can’t starve, and needed benefits.…

Person states what they do pretty clearly and seems knowledgable about their situation - and okay with it.

...yeah? I like writing and they supplied a platform much larger than I would have ever had by myself. My reach is 30,000 page views instead of 300. I totally understand the point that the structure should probably be different. But my experience has been overall positive. Just my two cents

I’m really having a hard time caring that fans of particular teams aren’t getting paid for blogging about their teams when they took the positions knowing the compensation involved. The vast majority of the bloggers there would be otherwise just writing long posts on their favorite team’s message boards if they…

But is it a problem if these unpaid contributors continue to submit content because they enjoy it? Maybe not being paid isn’t a big deal to some even if it generates ad revenue for the company that runs/owns the site.

Interesting write up. I actually write for an SBNation site and generally admire and am impressed with our site managers, do have a stipend, and always thought of it as a labor of love. I’m probably under paid but that’s not really why I’m doing it. But certainly understand the sticking points made.

Hello Pot, this is Kettle, why did you call me?

It’s blogging, not a California fruit farm.

This seems like a pretty generous use of the word “exploited.” I dunno. Fans blogging and getting paid for it seems like an ok model in most circumstances? If they want to have vox host their blogs they need to hit certain targets. If they can’t or don’t want to... then they don’t have to blog..? Was it ever…

Yeah, I think they might just be bros.

Curious here, and maybe im splitting hairs, but I always assumed that websites like Deadspin and The Ringer made their money off of lots of eyeballs reading your stuff, and then taking money from businesses to advertise their goods and services (usually only accompanied by a smallish “paid advertisement” denoted…

I think you might be overanyalyzing a bit. Simmons has made it clear in the past that he loves the olympics and has consistently talked about his trip to the London Olympics as an extremely positive experience. He probably loves the idea of having the olympics in his own backyard, and as a rich white dude he will…

Yup...these are my funders...

Pretty sure the only polos in his closet are of the green, sky blue, and dark purple striped variety.