In an era of retreat for many digital sports media operations, including Yahoo Sports, the site’s NBA columnist, Adrian Wojnarowski, is thinking big.
Wojnarowski and Yahoo Sports on Friday will formally debut The Vertical, a pro basketball-focused site built around the country’s most prominent NBA writers. Wojnarowski will serve as editor, but he has built a deep bench of talent for the venture, including former Sports Illustrated writer Chris Mannix, former Washington Post writer Michael Lee, and former Brooklyn Nets assistant general manager Bobby Marks.
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The new site takes its name from Adrian Wojnarowski’s NBA podcasts.
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There are obvious parallels between The Vertical and The MMQB, the football site SI built around its top NFL writer, Peter King. But The Vertical will have a slightly larger staff of five full-time writers and five additional contributors, and it will venture into a variety of content forms, including live video podcasts during major events on the NBA calendar, such as the draft and the All-Star Game, and weekly podcasts. The Vertical also will delve into more offbeat areas of basketball culture, such as sneaker collecting with Nick DePaula from NiceKicks.com, in addition to offering core NBA breaking news and analysis.
“We’re building this into the central hub of news and information and storytelling around the NBA,” Wojnarowski said. “The idea is to have a full collection of people who each bring something that can’t be found anywhere else.”
The creation of The Vertical is the key outgrowth of a four-year contract Wojnarowski signed last summer to stay with Yahoo Sports after nearly leaving to join SI. Wojnarowski also discussed at length a similar project with SI before Yahoo countered with an offer that industry sources said was worth more than $5 million over four years, as well as firm commitments to build out The Vertical staff.
Wojnarowski and Bob Condor, vice president of Yahoo Sports Media, declined to discuss how the launch of The Vertical interrelates with industry rumors that Yahoo will soon begin a large round of company layoffs. But each said the site is designed to be financially viable, in part through ad partnerships with several undisclosed sponsors slated to come aboard during the initial weeks of The Vertical’s existence, and the creation of large degrees of desirable multimedia content.
“As we’ve gone through the process of creating this site, we have a much better understanding of what will make us sustainable,” Wojnarowski said. “We’re going to do a lot around big events, and create a lot of opportunities for sponsors that are truly unique in the market.”
Content from The Vertical will be featured through the main Yahoo Sports portal. That site, in part through its digital alliance with NBC Sports, remains one of the most widely trafficked destinations in sports media, despite Yahoo’s corporate issues.
“We’ve really forged a strong base, and now our opportunity with The Vertical is show the very best of our reporting and storytelling skills in basketball,” Condor said. “We’re excited to show off everything that we can do.”
