Deadspin Layoffs: Entire Staff Laid Off After Sale To European Startup

Deadspin laid off its entire staff Monday after the sports news and commentary website was sold to a European startup firm.

Deadspin's parent company, G/O Media, announced the outlet's sale to digital media company Lineup Publishing and the layoffs in a memo to company staff obtained by Variety.

The terms of the sale, which affected 11 Deadspin staffers, were not disclosed.

In the memo, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said it was Lineup Publishing that decided "to not carry over any of the site's existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand."

"While the new owners plan to be reverential to Deadpin's [sic] unique voice, they plan to take a different content approach regarding the site's overall sports coverage," Spanfeller added. "This unfortunately means that we will be parting ways with those impacted staff members, who were notified earlier today."

Onion Inc. Union, which has represented some Deadspin employees and is affiliated with the Writers Guild of America East, also released a statement addressing the layoffs.

"Layoffs like this have become all too common at this company and in our industry at large," the union said, according to Variety. "This is why we fought for the severance package in our most recent contract, but the Deadspin staff deserve so much more than that."

Spanfeller clarified in his memo Monday that G/O Media was "not actively shopping Deadspin" before the sale.

According to the G/O Media CEO, they decided to accept Lineup Publishing's offer due to several factors, including "the buyer's editorial plans for the brand, tough competition in the sports journalism sector and a valuation that reflected a sizable premium from our original purchase price for the site."

This comes just months after G/O Media shut down Jezebel and fired the feminist news and opinion website's staff after failing to find a buyer.

Paste Magazine later bought the site. Its editor-in-chief, Josh Jackson, said at the time that he invited former Jezebel staffers to return to the outlet, Variety reported.

G/O Media also sold Lifehacker, an online how-to guide, in March 2023.

G/O Media currently owns Gizmodo, The Onion, The A.V. Club, Jalopnik, Kotaku, The Root and Quartz.

Meanwhile, several other publications and digital news outlets shuttered or cut its staff earlier this year.

The Messenger, which hired 300 journalists, announced last month that it was shutting down less than a year after its launch, CNN reported.

Vice Media stopped publishing on its website and let several hundred staffers go, while BuzzFeed fired 16% of its workforce amid a "strategic restructuring."

In January, hundreds of staffers at Vogue's parent company, Condé Nast, staged a walkout in protest of the company's plan to lay off unionized employees.