Oklahoman shakeup

[Sill Bimmons]

Wow. They put out a massive amount of content in their first two days on that new website.

 

[JRoyal]

The podcasts are good so far, and they have some killer writers. I’ll be interested to see how they deal with enterprise/investigative reporting. They’ve got some folks who’ve got the chops for it, for sure.

The website includes a page inviting “creators,” including high school and college(?) athletes to become part of their team, so I’m also wanting to see how that plays out and what exactly that entails.

 

[Sill Bimmons]

Massive amount of content: Sellout Crowd – Oklahoma's Essential Sports News Page

 

[tapintoamerica]

Impressive. I’d love to know the page views on Sooners stuff relative to Tulsa or the NBA team stolen from a superior market.

 

[cake in the rain]

Not a huge fan of the name.

I feel like it should have something that identifies it with Oklahoma in there. Sellout Crowd seems 1) very generic and 2) like a marketing company or something.

But then I guess The Athletic sounded weird went it started, too.

 

[Sill Bimmons]

Guy named Cake In the Rain criticizing names.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

Guy named Cake In the Rain criticizing names.

Guy named Sill Bimmons calling out a guy named Cake in the Rain (I assume both of you are guys) criticizing names.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

Six months in, and the place is basically dead in the water? Sounds like some pretty unhappy people ...

https://x.com/ToddOnSports/status/1764701466810302808?s=20

 

[playthrough]

The entire place is dead or it didn't work out for one guy?

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

Heard Carlson and Tramel are still there, but everybody else there - content producers and behind the scenes - was laid off.

 

[wicked]

You're competing against Gatehouse and you flop? That takes a lot of work.

 

[PaperClip529]

I wonder if Toby Keith's recent passing has impacted the outlook and optimism for that website.

Anyways, job-hunting journalists are going to need to start looking at these start-up websites with the same skepticism that we use on the beats we cover. Not that there's a lot of great places to work in this industry, but these stories of start-up websites not working for someone who was told one thing during their recruitment when reality was another are becoming commonplace.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

You're competing against Gatehouse and you flop? That takes a lot of work.

And Gannett? Probably the only win for a Gannett property since about 2004.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

There's a subway in Oklahoma City?

 

[wicked]

I forgot, it’s Gannetthouse or whatever now.

 

[Della9250]

Heard Carlson and Tramel are still there, but everybody else there - content producers and behind the scenes - was laid off.

Interesting. Lisenbee had a story posted on Friday morning.

I don't know what the workload was supposed to be, but he, and I assume others let go are still on the site. Under his page he's only posted two things since the start of February and 11 since the start of 2024. He also went from Sept. 4 to Nov. 17 without anything.

 

[Della9250]

 

[Della9250]

 

[Della9250]

 

[MeanGreenATO]

Some info I heard today from a very good source: Apparently there was a lot of, um, dishonesty about the financial state of the company and there was misrepresentation about several things, including the involvement level of some of the backers (yes, Toby Keith included). This has led to all of the sudden departures. Feel awful for all of the folks who joined.