Several of the top contributors who left the popular site Deadspin a year ago amid a battle over editorial control with new parent company G/O Media have formed a new site called Defector that is set to launch in September.
Among the names on the new masthead: Drew Magary, David J. Roth, Barry Petchesky and Diana Moskovitz.
Magary and Roth are also going to co-host a podcast called The Distraction. The podcast is set to launch in August, while the Defector site is set to launch in September.
Basically, they're getting the band back together, which should be very exciting news to a lot of people. That said, it doesn't exactly feel like Deadspin 2.0 — mostly because of the business model.
In a sign of how the economics of web-based publishing have changed since the site's 2005 inception, Defector is a subscription-based site instead of one supported by advertising and sponsorship as Deadspin was (and still is, as it continues to operate in the absence of many of the key people who built it).
Per The New York Times, there are no outside investors in the site and all employees have about a 5% stake. They will be paid as the site makes money. "If you're going to take a moonshot, you may as well do it exactly the way you want to," Kelsey McKinney, a former Deadspin staffer turned Defector contributor said.
Presumably that doesn't just involve the business side. At the heart of the mass exodus last year was a battle over what topics Deadspin should cover — with its new parent company wanting writers to essentially stick to sports.
