RIP Football Outsiders

[IrishLax]

The site apparently sold to someone... who then promptly stopped paying people as they were contractually obligated to in the sale and then deleted it. Insane to lose all of that information in the blink of an eye. FO was probably the best objective CFB/NFL site on the internet for the better part of decade.

Cautionary tale about these internet media PE and VC firms that ruin a lot of great things. Something similar happened to the biggest lacrosse message board a few years ago where they sold to someone who promised improvements and all this other stuff and then they just scrapped it when it wasn't making enough money for them.

 

[Henges24]

Wasn't this the website that was around before Scout? Maybe I'm mixing it up with another site.

 

[Bluto]

Cautionary tale about these internet media PE and VC firms that ruin a lot of great things. Something similar happened to the biggest lacrosse message board a few years ago where they sold to someone who promised improvements and all this other stuff and then they just scrapped it when it wasn't making enough money for them.

This issue of PE and VC “ruining” things and running amok in general is a huge problem beyond just internet media in my opinion.

 

[CTIDANDREW]

Very sad. DVOA is almost always my tie breaker when putting in a last minute NFL bet on Sundays around 12:59 PM
Aaron Schatz did announce recently of his career move.

FTN Network Announces Multi-Year Contract with Football Data Giant Aaron Schatz

FTN Network will now feature Aaron Schatz, DVOA, and a plethora of new football-related content created by Schatz for the rabid football fan

finance.yahoo.com

As a Vikings fan, I live by the pre season mantra of if Aaron Schatz or Bill Barnwell are down on us coming into the season, it's likely not going to be a fun four months.

Best of luck to Aaron with this move, I'll be interested to see if this new venture (FTN) gets the noterity and traffic that football outsiders got.

 

[IrishLax]

This issue of PE and VC “ruining” things and running amok in general is a huge problem beyond just internet media in my opinion.

Step 1. Make a ludicrous offer to an owner that they can't refuse.
Step 2. Promise -- in writing if you need to -- what you will do with the asset.
Step 3. Try to do financial fugazi with the asset and to either take out loans against it's "value" or sell/package it to someone else. Basically house flipping but for companies.
Step 4. Profit or not, the thing you bought dies or at minimum becomes unrecognizable.
Step 5. Maybe get sued, but who cares you've got good lawyers and usually solid liability protection.

It costs them nothing to keep a site like FO running, but deleting it and calling it a "loss" is better for tax time. Just absurd.

 

[Giddyup]

So the govt’ is paying them to destroy online entities? Fun era we’re in.