The popular sporting news property Bleacher Report recently named Johannes Leonardo as its creative agency partner after a review.
The site launched nearly 10 years ago in San Francisco, and it has survived as many rivals in the crowded and intensely competitive world of sports journalism failed. (RIP, Grantland.)
One source tells us that the review also involved the New York offices of Anomaly, Mother and Droga5, with the latter going up against JL in the final round.
Reps for those two agencies declined to comment. Bleacher Report’s head of PR confirmed that the company is working with Johannes Leonardo but did not elaborate on the nature of the relationship.
We currently have no official information about the work or the size of the account. Most non-legacy media companies are not large media spenders; Bleacher Report, however, was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System for $170 million just under 5 years ago and later developed the “industry-leading 5 star rated Team Stream app.” Its advertiser page claims 60+ million “unique visitors”, calling itself “the 2nd largest digital sports site on the planet” behind ESPN.
The property began as “a citizen journalism site for sports” and announced its Series A funding round and “public launch” in February 2008. Since then, it has abandoned the user-driven content model, hired several veteran journalists and evolved into more of a traditional multimedia source for sports news, footage and hot takes. In 2011, Adweek readers voted it their favorite sports media brand.
B/R celebrates one decade in business later this spring.