The Big Lead

The Big Lead is an American news blog. The website mainly covers sports news, although it also touches on a varying degree of other news topics ranging from politics to pop culture. Launched on February 24, 2006, it was co-founded by former sportswriter Jason McIntyre and his college friend David Lessa. In June 2010, McIntyre sold the site to Fantasy Sports Ventures for "low seven figures."[1] Gannett purchased Fantasy Sports Ventures on January 24, 2012, integrating the site into the digital network of USA Today.[2]

The Big Lead
Type of site
Blog
Available inEnglish
OwnerMinute Media
Created byJason McIntyre
David Lessa
URLwww.thebiglead.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedFebruary 24, 2006 (2006-02-24)
Current statusActive

As of 2009, the site averages over 8 million monthly page views.[3] Since 2012, McIntyre has hosted a weekly radio program on Fox Sports Radio named after the website, The Big Lead With Jason McIntyre.[4]

In March 2019, Gannett sold The Big Lead to Minute Media, owner of 12up.com; McIntyre and several other writers were laid off.[5]

Format and content

The site is usually updated ten to fifteen times a day between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, with each post receiving its own title and space for registered readers to post comments. The publishing day usually begins with the morning "Roundup", which provides links to varying news stories of interest in paragraph form at the top, and mainly links to different sports-related stories at the bottom of the column page. The "Roundup" feature is usually accompanied by a photograph of an attractive model or actress, as well as relevant or humorous YouTube clips. For many years, the site staged what it called a "Culture Tournament", in which 64 different sports figures, celebrities or other items of relevance (such as "Michael Phelps' Bong Hit," in which the Olympic Gold medal swimmer was caught smoking marijuana in 2009) are seeded in a bracket styled after that used to outline teams competing in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Readers are allowed to vote one time for each match up until a winner is decided. In 2008, ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews beat out actress/singer Jessica Simpson.[6] For the 2009 edition, Megan Fox was crowned champion narrowly over Andrews.[7]

Gaining notoriety

The Big Lead first gained notoriety after it obtained interviews with syndicated sportswriter and ESPN Poker commentator Norman Chad, and Kansas City Star and Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock. The interview with Whitlock generated controversy when he proceeded to trash his then-ESPN colleagues Scoop Jackson and Mike Lupica,[8] the fallout of which ended Whitlock's association with the network.[9]

The Colin Cowherd incident

On April 5, 2007, Colin Cowherd, then host of a self-titled radio program on ESPN Radio, instructed his show's listeners to flood The Big Lead with traffic. The surge in activity overloaded the website's servers, knocking The Big Lead offline for about 48 hours, before the site was restored on April 7.[10] The attack appeared to be unprovoked, with Cowherd saying "wouldn't it be great if we could blow up a website?". His actions drew criticism from the blogosphere, as well as ESPN.com's ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber, who called his actions "immature, irresponsible, arrogant, malicious, destructive and dumb."[11] However, since such actions were not forbidden by ESPN at that time, Cowherd did not face any disciplinary action for the incident. Coincidentally, nine years later in 2016, McIntyre joined Cowherd and Jason Whitlock as a co-commentator on their Fox Sports 1 talk show, Speak for Yourself with Cowherd & Whitlock.[12]

References
  1. Weprin, Alex (June 2, 2010). "The Big Lead Sold to Fantasy Sports Ventures". Adweek. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  2. "Gannett Buys Big Lead Sports Owner Fantasy Sports Ventures". AllThingsD. January 24, 2016.
  3. Bryan Armen Graham (December 11, 2009). "Best of the Decade: Movies, TV Shows, Books, Blogs". Sports Illustrated. Time Inc. – via CNN.
  4. "The Big Lead with Jason McIntyre". Premiere Networks.
  5. Marchand, Andrew (March 14, 2019). "Sale of The Big Lead leaves website founder Jason McIntyre out". New York Post. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  6. "2008 Culture Bracket". The Big Lead. Fantasy Sports Ventures. Archived from the original on 2010-01-05.
  7. "2009 Culture Bracket". The Big Lead. Fantasy Sports Ventures. Archived from the original on 2010-01-05.
  8. McIntyre, Jason (September 22, 2006). "Oh Damn, Did Whitlock Really Say That? A Q&A with Jason Whitlock". The Big Lead. Fantasy Sports Ventures. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  9. Richard Deitsch (March 12, 2008). "Anonymous No More". Sports Illustrated. Time Inc. – via CNN.
  10. McIntyre, Jason (April 9, 2007). "On Cowherd, Our Site, and the Ombudsman's Swift Response". The Big Lead. Fantasy Sports Ventures. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  11. Schreiber, Le Anne (April 8, 2007). "Cowherd's 'Attack' on blog: 'Zero tolerance'". ESPN.com. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  12. Draper, Kevin (May 26, 2016). "All Takes Matter Signs Blogger To Join Colin Cowherd And Jason Whitlock". Deadspin. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
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