Confusion is the word at the heart of the latest news surrounding Deadspin, the once well-respected sports blog that has been pared down to its domain name and sold to…well, we’re still not really sure.
We looked back at the many forms Deadspin has taken over the years and lamented what’s happened to it, but we still don’t seem to be any closer to understanding what’s next for the site.
Even Field Level Media, the sports news service currently providing Deadspin with its only active content, is completely in the dark about what’s next and who to talk to about it.
“We learned of the sale through major news coverage and headlines referencing layoffs,” a source told Front Office Sports. “Content is running to the site as it would any client under contractual agreement as of now.”
The only thing that we know for sure is that G/O Media sold Deadspin to a company called Lineup Publishing, which is supposedly based out of Malta. We also know the company’s bare-bones website was purchased last Thursday, just days before the sale was announced.
Earlier this week, Tedium’s Ernie Smith decided to do a late-night deep dive into Lineup. His first big break came from discovering the domain’s IP address was shared with one other website, a Finnish casino spam blog (splog) called Casino Sivut. Per Smith, the website had “numerous references to Maltese-operated online casinos targeting the Finnish market.”
From there, Smith uncovered a series of links on the website that pointed to a Google Groups post on Usenet that promoted a casino affiliate site. He noted that Google Groups recently retired its Usenet gateway because, in part, bots have run wild flooding Usenet groups with casino site spam.
There isn’t too much more information out there but given the presumed connection to a casino splog and the fact that offshore Mediterranean countries like Malta have become online casino hotbeds, it seems to point to some kind of betting platform or entity being involved with the new owners of Deadspin.
Smith poses the question, “What if Deadspin is there to lend legitimacy to an online betting site or a casino affiliate network?” We can’t for sure yet, but we can look to the recent sale of Salon.com to a two-year-old Malta-based media company as a potential example of what’s happening here. While that company appears to be a legitimate business and they maintained the editorial staff, they’re also now looking to ramp up their iGaming efforts.
We’ll see if any other details trickle out, but for now, we’re left to wonder what Deadspin’s new owners have in store for the domain. One thing we seem to know for sure is that G/O Media had less care and appreciation for the brand they owned than we even realized.
