If you’re a digital publisher and you haven’t embraced mobile and social, get on board.
That was one message from Bleacher Report CEO and co-founder Dave Finocchio, who spoke at our second annual GeekWire Sports Tech Summit last month.
Finocchio helped launch the sports news site a decade ago with a focus on younger consumers, and in 2012, Turner acquired the company for $170 million. Now Bleacher Report finds itself as one of the leading sports media entities in a rapidly-changing industry affected by the rise of digital content and new technologies.
During a 30-minute conversation with GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, Finocchio discussed everything from Facebook’s grip on the digital publishing industry to why interest in traditional fantasy football is declining. He noted that at some point in the past several years, Bleacher Report realized that it didn’t want to be in the “website business.” Now its focus is on being one of the top sports brands geared toward a younger generation of fans.
“The role that sports plays is a little bit different for the younger generation than it was for older generations, so we’ve really embraced that,” he said. “It’s why our content is shared five times more often than any of our other competitors. It’s just a different way of thinking about the industry.”
Watch the full interview above.
