Sunday, February 26, 2017

"Inside the ugly breakup of Sports Illustrated, The Cauldron, and Chat Sports"

Yahoo:
Earlier this month, Sports Illustrated abruptly ended its partnership with The Cauldron, an independent sports blog that had a modest but devoted readership, and had made waves with a number of viral posts written by pro athletes like Steph Curry. The breakup was covered in straightforward fashion by a few sports and media blogs.

But there’s much more to the story: impersonations, fake emails, and a forged term sheet.

It is a convoluted tale, but worth climbing down the rabbit hole. It’s the tale of a sports media acquisition gone very wrong, and how the broken deal ensnared a number of big-name media companies and venture capitalists along the way.