They’re not going to fire the merch people. That’s where all of their money is made. The actual media/content wing of Grandex only exists as a loss-leader to drive traffic to Rowdy Gentleman and the other retail brands.
Shit, they don’t even have to pay their freelancers actual money. Bleacher Report and HuffPo became billion-dollar media companies by convincing aspiring writers to submit nearly all of their content for free. Literally free. They pay these people these people nothing, and keep them hooked by giving them meaningless “promotional titles”, tell them that they are getting great “exposure”, and dangle vague promises of an eventual paid gig if they establish enough of a reader base to merit it. Of course this paid gig never materializes. Bleacher report has had thousands of unpaid contributors and maybe a few dozen of them have ever actually transitioned into a paid gig with the company.
It has outshone it for a long time. Grandex makes almost all of its money from selling apparel from Rowdy Gentleman and their other retail lines. TFM/TSM/PGP and all of the content therein is little more than a promotional vehicle for these clothing brands. There are a number of other humor/lifestyle websites on the internet (such as Thrillist) that use the same business model: the media content of the business is just a loss-leader that draws visitors to the website, who then see then buy shit from the in-house retail brand that’s promoted in the articles.
Grandex may have decided (based on clickthrough analytics or whatever) that the clothing brands are established enough in their own right now that pouring money into lots of media content isn’t necessary anymore.
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Ok, I don’t know what the fuck that thing is but it is definitely not “male”.
They’re not going to fire the merch people. That’s where all of their money is made. The actual media/content wing of Grandex only exists as a loss-leader to drive traffic to Rowdy Gentleman and the other retail brands.
Some of TFM’s best writers from the old days like Roger Sterling Jr. were never even in a fraternity.
Shit, they don’t even have to pay their freelancers actual money. Bleacher Report and HuffPo became billion-dollar media companies by convincing aspiring writers to submit nearly all of their content for free. Literally free. They pay these people these people nothing, and keep them hooked by giving them meaningless “promotional titles”, tell them that they are getting great “exposure”, and dangle vague promises of an eventual paid gig if they establish enough of a reader base to merit it. Of course this paid gig never materializes. Bleacher report has had thousands of unpaid contributors and maybe a few dozen of them have ever actually transitioned into a paid gig with the company.
It has outshone it for a long time. Grandex makes almost all of its money from selling apparel from Rowdy Gentleman and their other retail lines. TFM/TSM/PGP and all of the content therein is little more than a promotional vehicle for these clothing brands. There are a number of other humor/lifestyle websites on the internet (such as Thrillist) that use the same business model: the media content of the business is just a loss-leader that draws visitors to the website, who then see then buy shit from the in-house retail brand that’s promoted in the articles.
Grandex may have decided (based on clickthrough analytics or whatever) that the clothing brands are established enough in their own right now that pouring money into lots of media content isn’t necessary anymore.