At the end of February, Sactown Royalty will no longer be supported by Vox Media
Recently, we learned that Sactown Royalty would no longer be financially supported by Vox Media, SB Nation’s parent company. This blog will be unaffiliated with SB Nation starting on Feb. 28, 2023.
So what does this news mean for the future of this site?
We are still piecing together a lot of the details, but we know that none of our contributors will be compensated for their work by Vox Media starting on Feb. 28.
The site currently has three writers, all of whom are contributing on a part-time basis, with other full-time jobs taking up most of our time. Being able to effectively cover the team with just three writers who are only able to write a couple of times a week has been a challenge. Having to do so for free, without even the smallest financial backing we have had from Vox Media, will make it an even more challenging task.
There is no way to sugarcoat this news. It sucks.
Getting this news in the middle of this exciting Kings season makes it all the more unfortunate. At the time of this post, the Kings are 28-21 and are sitting in the third seed in the Western Conference with a genuine chance at ending their record-setting playoff drought, a gap in postseason appearances that has existed for the majority of this site’s history.
The fact that the team could make the playoffs for the first time since 2006, and this site might not exist, or be completely stripped down, is a frustrating thought.
This site has long been a forum for fans to get out their frustration and anger about the Kings. After so many years of losing, bad draft picks and generally Kangziness, the site was a place where fans could vent and commiserate about a bad on-court product. In the early 2010s, the team’s future in Sacramento was in limbo, and this site played a pivotal role in rallying fans during the Here We Stay movement, which helped keep the Kings in Sacramento.
Back in early 2020, this site, which had previously been one of the most-read NBA team sites, was bulldozed by Vox Media, and writers who had been with the site for years were replaced by national writers without ties to the Kings. Eventually, the site hired some Kings fans back, and we’ve tried our best to bring a little more insight to the team, despite our limited resources.
Sactown Royalty joins several other NBA blogs that Vox Media cut ties with in this cost-cutting move. Additionally, the media company will be demonetizing most of SB Nation’s NHL and MLS blogs as well.
A lot of prominent NBA writers, including Tom Ziller, James Ham, the majority of the staff at Kings Herald and several others, got their start writing here at Sactown Royalty. So the fact that the site’s future could be in jeopardy is disheartening and provides fewer outlets for someone with aspirations of covering the Kings.
As for the immediate future, we plan to continue writing on the site and covering Kings games and news until Feb. 28, but after that, everything is up in the air.
Thank you to everyone who has ever read, commented or worked for the site. We will provide more info on next steps as this situation continues to develop.