Minnesota Wild news site among the victims of Vox, SB Nation cuts
Minnesota Wild news website Hockey Wilderness will soon cease operations amid a cull by Vox Media, which the New York Times reports has laid off 7% of its workforce.
Thomas P. Williams, the managing editor of Hockey Wilderness, confirmed that the website and its staff are among those affected by the Vox cuts.
"I poured a whole damn lot into that site and saw it grow a tremendous amount over the 2.5 years I was in charge of it," said Williams in a tweet. "I have wrote 1,360 blogs for that damn website and I couldn't be more proud of what it has become."
Williams said Vox is shutting down "a whole lot of NHL sites," which like Hockey Wilderness are part of the SB Nation network under the Vox Media umbrella. SB Nation has been around since 2005.
The message on the Hockey Wilderness Twitter account reads: "Hi everyone, we received news this morning that Hockey Wilderness is one of the communities affected by this. As of right now, we don't have a lot of information other than coverage will continue until Feb. 28. We will keep you all updated."
Jim Bankoff, VOX CEO, issued this statement to the New York Times.
"Unfortunately, in this economic climate, we're not able to sustain projects and areas of the business that have not performed as anticipated, are less core to where we see the biggest opportunities in the coming years, or where we don't have enough rationale to support ongoing investment in what could be a prolonged downturn. In spite of the dedication of the many talented people involved in these initiates, we need to scale back."
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.