BLEACHER REPORTData, Innovation and a growing

sports media property

Rory Brown

March 2014

Digital Media Strategies

Where did B/R come from?

In 2007, Bleacher Report set out to make fans feel more invested in their teams by…

• Providing access to great stories

• Covering the long tail of teams that major sites historically neglected

• Tailoring voice and style to how younger fans want to consume sports content (social, snackable)

• Honing in on real-time coverage of teams, leagues and events

Founding principles

Built to fill a gap in the market

Siz

e o

f fa

n b

ase

Sports teams and topics

Bleacher Report

• Covered many more teams and topics

• Appealed to a wider variety of sports fan

across the web

• Sought to be a one-stop shop for sports

content – bringing together the best

content from around the web into one

destination

ESPN.com and

other big sites

• Covered major teams in large markets

• Highlighted a few teams in lots of detail

• Appealed to large audiences but

neglected the long tail

• Content that did cover the long tail was

highly fragmented – hard for fans to

figure out which sites/articles were

worth reading

Why B/R got serious about

data and distribution

Iterative growth strategy

• Scale the audience

• Get in the door with advertisers

• Raise venture money

• Invest in content

• Iterate, iterate, iterate

Growth Strategy Content Strategy

• Use analytics and search data to

inform content creation process

• Identify gaps in market where fan

demand outweighs content

supply (e.g., NFL Draft, transfer

window, etc.)

The goals are still the same

Innovate over time

Grow

AudienceCreate

Loyalty

Generate

Engagement

So what are those

distribution channels?

Search

• Sports, and sports-related searches are cyclical

• Find out where supply doesn’t meet demand

• Embrace the mobile search experience

Newsletters

• Convert passing search

referrals into regular

newsletter users

• Leverage search data

to deliver content fans

want before they even

know they want it

• Original content plus

curated content

• Test, test, test

Web experience

• Build “retention” experience on website

• Increase frequency, and length of visits

• Continue to curate – make it easy on the user

Team Stream

• Original and curated

content in team-first

mobile app

• “Alerts” to highly engaged

audience tied to news and

analysis

• A true, real-time content

experience

• Data and distribution

focused on mobile

Social

• Engage with large fan base on

Facebook and Twitter

• Credibility is key. Brand is only as

good as your weakest post

• Curate and build content

specifically for sharing directly

from B/R

• Day-to-day traffic is more

volatile, but the audience

opportunity is massive

So does this strategy work for

building audience?

Results

60M monthly visits

Newsletters

Web Experience

Search

Team Stream

Social

3M active subscribers

1.3B monthly pageviews

100 monthly visits

Source: Google Analytics

50 monthly visits

And we’re just getting started…

So what’s next?

• Team Stream Now initiative

• Video built specifically for Team Stream and social channels

• Leverage data and editorial savvy to pick the right topics

• Engage audience with breaking news, analysis and modern graphics

Video

• Bleacher Report opened UK office July 2013

• Team Stream launched in UK app stores July 2013

• The early returns (Jan 2014 vs Jan 2013) are promising

UK Expansion

TOTAL VISITS

UNIQUES

PAGEVIEWS

UK Visits

UK Pageviews

UK Team Stream

UK Unique Visitors 3.5M (+56% YoY)

10.3M (+89% YoY)

50.8M (+64% YoY)

230K Downloads

Source: Google Analytics, Jan. 2014