Sad news emerged last night as Joe Ragazzo, Co-Founder of Slingshot Esports revealed the website would cease operations today, 31st October.
The post on the website cites lack of funding as the reason that the website can no longer continue operations. Ragazzo revealed “We were unable, however, to secure enough funding to continue operations. This is a business fault that lies with me, not with the editorial staff. For the past eight months or so we have been trying to raise funds and simply did not raise enough to continue Slingshot in the way we wanted. We had offers to purchase the site, but for several reasons those offers did not make sense. So we declined”.
He continued: “We had a great business plan and were making progress building a membership base. But that plan requires new resources. And we weren’t able to find them”.
It comes as the second dedicated esports content portal to close in recent months, with Yahoo Esports also closed following the acquisition of Yahoo by Verizon back in June. Other moves in the content scene saw GAMURS merge the GAMURS content portal and Dot Esports site back in March.
Slingshot’s esports content was unique in the industry, yet it’s evident that the content sphere in esports continues to struggle for revenue stream and sustainability. The staff team at Slingshot, from editor Vince Nairn to writers such as Stephen Chiu, Jarek “DeKay” Lewis, Andrew Kim and Emily Rand are all well respected figures in the esports content world who have produced exceptional work in the space. They shall sadly all now need to find a new home.
Last month Slingshot launched a Patreon membership program but with just 1% of the $20,000 a month goal achieved it didn’t work out as desired. Another site closing goes to outline the problems for sites providing content.
Esports Insider says: Really sad news as Slingshot closes its doors. The team provided unique content that is rarely seen across other consumer specific sites. Best of luck to all of the team, we hope they all find new homes soon and continue to provide great written articles.