Bleacher Report (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London.
Bleacher Report was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System in August 2012 for $175 million. In March 2018, Bleacher Report and Turner Sports launched B/R Live, a subscription video streaming service featuring live broadcasts of several major sports events.
History
Founding: 2005–2011
Bleacher Report was formed in 2005 by David Finocchio, Alexander Freund, Bryan Goldberg, and Dave Nemetz—four friends and sports fans who were high school classmates at Menlo School in Atherton, California. Inspired by Ken Griffey Jr, they wanted to start writing about sports. With the help of two old friends, J. B. Long and Ryan Alberti, the company's nucleus took up residence in a Menlo Park office space, in the spring of 2007, for $650 a month.
Bleacher Report announced the completion of a round of Series A funding on the occasion of its public launch in February 2008. The undisclosed sum came from Hillsven Capital, Transcoast Capital, and Vimeo founder Jakob Lodwick. Eight months later, in October 2008, Bleacher Report secured $3.5 million in Series B funding from Hillsven, Gordon Crawford, and SoftTech VC.
Under the Turner corporate umbrella, Finocchio remains at Bleacher Report as the CEO. Goldberg and Nemetz transitioned out of their respective VP roles during the integration process. Freund left the company in 2009.
A Series C round in December 2010, led by Crosslink Capital, netted an additional $10.5 million.
Bleacher Report named Brian Grey as its chief executive officer in 2010. Grey came to Bleacher Report from leadership roles at Fox Sports Interactive and Yahoo! Sports. In the first year of Grey's tenure, Bleacher Report filled two more executive-level positions, adding Rich Calacci as chief revenue officer and Drew Atherton as chief financial officer. Calacci joined the company in May 2011; Atherton followed a month later in June.
In August 2011, the company announced a $22 million growth round led by Oak Investment Partners, with participation from Crosslink and Hillsven. At the time, Oak general partner Fred Harman, a board member at both The Huffington Post and Demand Media, characterized the investment as a bet on Bleacher Report's ability to keep pace with real-time fan interest across all forms of social media.
For many years after its founding, Bleacher Report was one of the few mainstream sports websites in the United States that regularly covered professional wrestling, as the genre is generally seen as a form of entertainment within the U.S. due to the open secret that professional wrestling is staged. This continued under Turner ownership, as Turner had once owned World Championship Wrestling. Following WWE and ESPN beginning to collaborate on projects on a regular basis in 2014, other mainstream sports outlets now cover professional wrestling, with Bleacher Report having strengthened theirs by forming a partnership with All Elite Wrestling to be the exclusive home to their pay-per-view events in the U.S., as well as parent company Turner having broadcasting rights to AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage.
Turner Sports acquisition: 2012–present
Bleacher Report's sale to Time Warner (via Turner Sports) was announced on August 6, 2012. Under the terms of the deal, Grey, Finocchio, Calacci, and CTO Sam Parnell all assumed official Turner Sports titles while retaining their management responsibilities at Bleacher Report. In a press release announcing the purchase, Turner president of sales, distribution, and sports David Levy cited the site's rapid growth and loyal user base as key factors in his company's decision to make a deal—and also alluded to the potential value of Bleacher Report's multimedia platform as an outlet for Turner's various video resources:
Nemetz continued with the company for eight months after the acquisition, going on to advise and invest in other media platforms including Elite Daily and Bustle. As part of the integration process, Atherton's CFO responsibilities were assumed by Turner corporate in February 2013, and Grey stepped down from the CEO position in October 2013. Since Grey's departure, Finocchio has headed Bleacher Report, up until September 2014.
In May 2014, Bleacher Report launched Game of Zones, a parody of HBO's Game of Thrones featuring animated NBA figures.
In September 2014, Bleacher Report named Dorth Raphaely General Manager, taking over for Finocchio, following his departure as CEO.
In 2015, Bleacher Report acquired the popular sports-themed Instagram page House of Highlights.