Early this morning Vox Media, the owner of SB Nation and the various sites affiliated with it, announced via numerous channels that they would be scaling back operations. At 10:40 a.m. EST, I received the following email as the Managing Editor of Knights on Ice.
You probably will not be surprised to hear that Vox Media has been experiencing a downturn in advertising alongside others in the media and tech industries. Given the difficult economic climate we have had to make the difficult and careful decision to pull back coverage in some areas across our network where we will not invest in long-term growth or where we felt we had redundant coverage. As a result, most of the NHL communities will be impacted. Your site is one of the impacted sites and will no longer be managed and monetized by Vox Media. We are making similar changes at some additional communities in combat, NBA, MLS, and our community podcasting business.
While we will no longer be supporting these communities, that does not necessarily mean the sites will be shutting down. We hope that many of the impacted sites and their brands will continue to operate and thrive under your leadership. We are exploring a range of options (which will include your continued use of your site’s name/brand and domain name/URL.) We will be soliciting input from you and then sharing more information about how we can help enable you to manage and monetize the sites and brands in the coming days and weeks. Your independent contractor agreement will continue through February (until February 28, 2023).
At this point I can’t say I know what will happen next at Knights on Ice, a community I haven’t been part of for all too long, but I wanted to put the information out there. The Vegas Golden Knights are an exciting team that’s new to the league, one that has provided exhilarating moments, and a group that certainly deserves coverage. For the interim the team at KOI will continue to provide previews, recaps, and other assorted coverage, but after February 28, I can’t say for certain what will happen.