Editor-in-chief Tom Ley reflects on Defector’s 5-year anniversary

It takes guts to start something new, especially a digital media company, and especially in the middle of the pandemic. When the former staff members of Deadspin officially launched Defector on Sept. 10, 2020, it was a calculated risk.

Today, the subscription-based site, owned by the staff, continues to produce insightful and unique content. We recently caught up with editor-in-chief Tom Ley to discuss the evolution of Defector.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Awful Announcing: How does it feel to reach Year No.5?

Tom Ley: “It feels good. I guess, if I’m being honest, I didn’t totally, when we started, necessarily expect us to make it this long, or at least make it this long in relatively good shape. It’s gone much better than I probably could have predicted when we started.”

How nervous were you at the start?

“At the beginning, it was pretty scary because we were such a big group. We wanted this to be something that we could make our jobs. When we first launched it, we didn’t have any good idea of ‘Were people even going to be interested in this? Would we get enough subscribers to actually make enough money?’ That was all very scary. And then things worked out better than we could have anticipated. So that fear went away pretty quickly. I wouldn’t say there’s any fear now. I think we’re all just sort of very happy and amazed at how far we’ve come and how we’ve lasted this long.”

How has Defector evolved?

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much we’ve been able to expand our horizons, not just in hiring, but in coverage areas and types of things that we’re doing, especially on the podcast front. We’ve had a lot of success there. We’ve been doing cool shows, particularly Normal Gossip, which is a runaway success on its own. I think we started with 19 people and now has like 27 full-time employees. It’s been cool to bring in new people who add their own expertise and skills to the staff. When we launched, I would not have expected that we would one day hire someone like Sabrina Imbler, who’s covering science and nature.”

What can you tell us about the party you’re throwing?

 “Yeah, that’s open to anybody. It should be pretty low-key. It’s in a bar in Williamsburg called Union Pool (on Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. ET). It’s free, anybody can come. We’re going to have some music. We’ll have a couple of live bands playing, so that’ll be fun. It’s mostly just a chance for readers, subscribers, people we’ve worked with, and our friends to come hang out and celebrate.”

What has been the biggest challenge from the start?

“It’s definitely finding new subscribers consistently. That’s a challenge that is exacerbated by a lot of the stuff that’s going on in digital media, where Google search is way worse than it used to be in terms of getting your stuff in front of new people. Twitter kind of killed outside links. So, it’s very hard to get your stuff around on that platform. The challenge is finding new and creative ways to get our work in front of people who maybe haven’t heard of us or have only heard of us once or twice. Or don’t know yet everything that we do.”

How would you convince someone who has never heard of Defector to subscribe?

“I would say if you’re the kind of sports fan that finds yourself increasingly annoyed at how much gambling content you’re forced to consume or how bone dry a lot of the analysis and columns you read can be. If you, like us, are finding yourself mystified and befuddled by some of the sentences that get published by Shams Charania and other scoop reporters who have a strange way of writing. If that stuff annoys you or just makes you feel like maybe there’s something else out there that’s better for you, I think that Defector is a good place to come hang out and see what we’ve got. And a lot of that applies to our non-sports stuff.”

Is there a wild idea you’ve tried to drum up interest?

“We helped sponsor a really low-level bowl game with Matt Brown from Extra Points. He has the Extra Points Bowl, a D3 football game. And so we did that with him. It was fun. None of us were like there or anything, but they put our name on it. It was fun doing it with Matt. It’s like a funny bit basically.”

Who are some of your more popular writers?

“I think that Maitreyi Anantharaman is the best women’s basketball writer working right now. She’s got a book about the WNBA coming out. She writes for us about the W and women’s college basketball. It’s just pretty amazing. We’ve got Giri Nathan. I also think he’s the best tennis writer. Our soccer coverage is really great. Billy Haisley and Luis Paez-Pumar. We’ve got people who do bigger commentary. David Roth writes about politics. People really respond to his stuff. Kelsey McKinney does a lot of culture coverage and some politics as well. And then of course, we’ve got Drew Magary, who’s a bit of an institution unto himself, writing about the NFL and just anything else. I didn’t even mention Ray Ratto, who’s in my mind, a legendary sports writer.”

Is Diana Moskovitz’s story about the investigation of Florida basketball coach Todd Golden an example of Defector doing something different than the mainstream media?

“Diana’s always been great at that. She’s a great reporter. She’s our investigations editor. And yeah, a lot of the value we can provide people is covering stories from maybe different or more honest angles than other places might be covering them. I think you’re right, that story is a good example of that.”

What are your long-term goals for the site?

“Our biggest goal always is sustainability first. We want to be a financially stable publication that can last for the long haul. I think we’re doing that so far. Obviously, we’d like to get bigger, expand our coverage areas, and our staff. But that has to be a slow process because we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and start hiring people with money that we don’t have. We’ve grown a lot in five years, considering where we were when we started. Continued steady growth is basically the goal. I know that doesn’t really sound all that exciting when you say it out loud, but that is kind of what we’re interested in. Just having a steady publication that works, that can grow as it’s supposed to, and hopefully get better every year.”