Someone’s Trying to Frankenstein a Sports Blog Monster That Will Crush Philly.Com

For updates on Hunter Pence and his porn-star lady friend, breaking news about signings and trades, and some of the best sports commentary in Philly, I’ve had Crossing Broad bookmarked for two years now. Today, that site’s editor-guy Kyle Scott announced he’s combining forces with Buzz on Broad—run by Drew Cohen—and working with a slew of other Philly-based sites to, basically, get some advertiser money. Scott is obviously aiming to make a splash in the deep end of Philly’s sports media pool, so I got him on the phone to ask … What’s he building in there?

What’s the goal of Crossing Broad and this new conglomerate of sports blogs?
We’re part news, part entertainment. I think we’ve always been an equal part of both. From a content standpoint, there’s a real market locally for sports news and commentary. Philly’s always been one of the best cities in the country with its blog scene. But, it’s never really been consolidated and it hasn’t really been monetized. Mostly there’s been a scattershot of blogs that haven’t been able to make much of a dent with the mainstream audience. There’s only so much one site can do. By working with these other sites, it allows us to go to advertisers and say, “you can reach a pretty large audience.”

Will the sites be consolidated?
Well, Buzz on Broad is different. Drew Cohen—who runs that site—will be working with me on Crossing Broad, and the two of us will be in charge of both Crossing Broad and Buzz on Broad. That’ll be one combined entity. The other sites will remain independently owned and operated. I’m fairly certain that we’re the most visited independent sports site in the city. And even with our 800,000 monthly impressions it’s hard to go to advertisers—medium- to large-size businesses—and get their attention. I’m thinking that if I can’t get their attention, how is someone with less traffic going to get their attention?

So, this is an appeal to advertisers?
Yeah—we’ll be partnering together. We’ll be able to sell ads on their behalf. And everyone else will be able to sell ads on behalf of this network, and we’ll have a revenue-sharing system. It promotes everyone to link to each other as best they can, but remain separate and kind of combine forces to approach advertisers and say that if they want to reach 250,000 sports fans per month in Philadelphia, we’ve got an alternative to some of the bigger places that charge much more.

Strange that this announcement comes on the same day that news breaks that the Inquirer and Daily News sports desks will be working cooperatively to help the Philadelphia Media Network compete against other publications.
It’s a pretty big coincidence. I was typing the part of our announcement where, quite frankly, we take a little bit of aim at the Philadelphia Media Network when Drew from Buzz on Broad sent me a text asking if I’d seen the news. I know something like that had been rumored for a while. I actually used to sell ads for the Philadelphia Media Network about three or four years ago. So, I wasn’t surprised. But, to have them announce that and then 30 minutes later we could say, “Hey, there are problems over there. Take a look at us,” couldn’t have worked out better.

Philly.com is like a black hole.
You know, there is some good content on their website. But, it’s hard to find—you’re bombarded with auto-play ads, it’s interspersed with Bleacher Report articles that are written by everyday fans with little vetting or editorial control. As a blogger I can’t really take shots at someone who stays at home and writes. For someone to read your blog, you’ve got to be good and build up some credibility.