Keep SB Nation free and in the lead

Hey everyone, I did this a while back and this should be the final push forward. But as you may know SB Nation is a free website. None of the articles, be them stat based, draft info, videos, podcasts, or longforms are "Insider Subscription" blocked. The content which you see comes to you all day and all night long for close to 400 different sports blogs right now. And that's just SB Nation. SB Nation is a branch of a larger media tree: Vox Media. Vox Media includes not just SB Nation, but also The Verge (tech news), Polygon (Games news), Curbed (real estate), Eater (food and fine dining), Racked (shopping), and one of my personal favorites: Vox.com (hard news from Ezra Klein and other).

Yes, there are ads on these sites, but that's how they keep the lights on. Adweek is a website that has a lot of clout with major brands and marketing / sales departments. They have a little poll on their site that you can reach by clicking here. This poll is important because it influences the behavior of larger brands and their ads departments. Effectively, simple things like this have a serious trickle down effect. The better SB Nation is viewed by in it's internet rank, the more money it can generate per ad, and thus, with time they can have fewer and fewer ads on the page. And let's not forget that this is a free website where there's no large trust or investors. It's ad based, for the most part.

You want continued content that's always free and available regardless of if you sign in, log on, or subscribe.

SB Nation wants to get the big ad contracts.

In order to help ensure that this happens, they need votes on this adweek poll.

There are three polls that matter:

• The first poll on the page is the 4th one down "Hottest Digital Publication". Here you have the option to vote for Vox against BuzzFeed and Thrillist. This doesn't help SLC Dunk directly, but does indirectly
• The second poll on the page is the 5th one down "Hottest in Sports". This has SB Nation up against ESPN and FanSided. I think you know who the good guys in this situation are.
• The third is "Hottest in Native Advertising", which is the 7th one down. It has Vox up against BuzzFeed and the New York Times.

You don't have to vote on this poll at all. And if you do, you don't have to vote for each category, or even vote for Vox Media's properties in each one. I do want to make you know why these things are important. They are because they keep our content online and free for everyone.

If you are going to vote, then vote just once for SB Nation against ESPN and FanSided. It is just three clicks, one here to get to the page with the polls, and then one more to tick the radio button for SB Nation, and one more to click vote.

If half of you do this, then I will write a rap song about Greg Ostertag.