XM MLB Chat: The Big Lead sports blog sold for 'low 7 figures'- NY Times

6/01: "The Big Lead, an independent blog that Jason McIntyre began as a hobby, is fixated on sports media, news and gossip. Along the way, it has built a devoted, if not huge, social media following.

Now, a buyer has established a value for the blog by acquiring it for a figure
in the low seven figures.

The buyer, Chris Russo, chief executive of Fantasy Sports Ventures, a network of 600 sports sites, said: “You can’t out-ESPN ESPN, but you can take a different approach. Jason covers general sports and celebrity with an in-depth focus on sports media. Through good journalism and good luck, The Big Lead has succeeded.”

Fantasy Sports, which reaches 15 million users monthly through its array of Web properties, owns TheHuddle.com and BaseballHQ.com, and the basketball news site HoopsHype.com.

The Big Lead is in some ways a tamer, cleaner version of Deadspin, the occasionally ferocious, often ribald sports Web site that is owned by Gawker Media, and also

fascinated by ESPN.

When McIntyre began his site in 2006, he was still an editor at US Weekly. “I really didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. He wrote it anonymously until his identity was revealed by Sports Illustrated (which later named it one of the five most influential sports blogs of the decade)."...