It’s called Defector Media. It’s from the team that quit in last year’s Great Deadspin Meltdown. And like the Deadspin of old, it’s a sports blog.
But Defector’s approach to the journalism biz has media gazers going 👀:
- It’s employee-owned — writers control their IP and a 5% stake in the company.
- That makes it a high-profile example of an emerging model: the media co-op.
- Subscriptions are Defector’s game. Eyeballs drove Deadspin’s ad revenue. Defector’s plans include a $69/year option for us plebes, and $25k/year for the “Mysterious Benefactor/Sicko Lawyer.”
Defector’s also noteworthy for what it isn’t: It ain’t on Substack. As Jacob Donnelly put it: “Each person could have gone and launched their own publication. Instead, they realized that working together and bundling from the start makes the case much easier to get paying subscribers.”
