Sports Media Shakeup as ALLCITY Network Poaches Local Talent in Philadelphia Expansion

Big news in Philly sports media. One of the worst-kept secrets is that the ALLCITY sports network is expanding to Philadelphia, and poaching some big name personalities.

ALLCITY is launching this month with a collection of writers and content creators who are leaving 97.5 the Fanatic, Philly Voice, The Athletic, and other familiar outlets. They also pursued guys from the Inquirer and 94 WIP, basically canvassing the local scene. We decided not to name names because most of these guys had not yet notified their current employers of their departures. However, you’ll be very surprised when the full contributor list is revealed. It’s a who’s who of Philly sports veterans and younger writers and content creators.

There were also several instances of individuals remaining with their outlets via counter-offer when informed of ALLCITY’s approach. We were told that ALLCITY was offering “really damn good money,” as one person told Crossing Broad. They also approached podcast hosts in an effort to purchase their RSS feeds and bring those into the company for rebranding.

So what is ALLCITY anyway?

It’s a still-relatively-new network that operates websites in Denver, Phoenix, and Chicago. There’s written content like any typical website, but they do a lot of multimedia stuff as well, like YouTube shows, podcasts, live events, merch sales, and whatnot. There’s a subscriber option, so it’s kind of like The Athletic if The Athletic wasn’t fully paywalled and branched out in a much more visual and new school type of way. Much less about “journalism” much more of a casual “sports fan” vibe, at least that’s the gist I get. The ALL CITY sites dabble in a little bit of everything, like this:

And this:

Come hang out at the DNVR Bar with Buff Nation for Coach Prime’s debut as Colorado’s head coach!

$25 Riki Bucket
Forever Buffs Glasses are available
Open at 9 a.m. and will be serving brunch!

C U then!#SkoBuffs pic.twitter.com/K8bMokCsXA

— DNVR Sports (@DNVR_Sports) August 31, 2023

This is the Linkedin blurb for CEO Brandon Spano:

CEO of ALLCITY Network, a company that builds digital communities around city-specific sports networks for diehard sports fans. We are widely considered the most innovative local sports network in the nation.

We currently operate the DNVR, CHGO, and PHNX sports networks in Colorado, Illinois, and Arizona.

We deliver streaming and archived content to millions of fans per month, merchandise to thousands, and even pack our downtown sports bar with fans from our community, nightly.

I believe in servant leadership and creative freedom in the work place and I hire people who want to change the game, not just play in it.

The Denver site has seemingly done pretty well and prompted expansion into other markets. They’ve got a lot of money behind the project and made aggressive pursuits in the Philly market, so it should be a pretty interesting shift coming up here.

Expect a formal announcement soon, with a list of local contributors.

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