More PFT-NBC Details

For those of you who were burning couches in the wake of the Lakers’ umpteenth NBA title, you might not yet realize that PFT and NBC officially will be announcing a wide-ranging partnership on Monday. Our Sunday night item regarding the development is right here. After having an opportunity to digest your comments, e-mails, and tweets, I need to mention a few details that weren’t included in last night’s introductory blurb. First, I have retained full editorial control over the site. In my initial meeting in Tampa with Rick Cordella, the General Manager of NBC Sports Digital, we agreed that any arrangement between PFT and NBC would reserve to me the power to decide what to write, when to write it, and how to write it -- with not a single layer of NBC editorial input (other than someone who’ll clean up typos and the occasional Emmittism). It was clear when we met last Monday with Dick Ebersol at 30 Rock that he wants it that way, too. (The bad news is that he has asked twice now for a copy of my off-off-Broadway play, La Cocina.) Second, in an effort to make the site even better, I’ll be giving up the practice of law. And that’s a huge deal for me; I’ve been practicing for nearly 18 years, and while it’s stressful and demanding and at times incredibly frustrating, I enjoy it. Then again, I’ve been working toward that outcome -- consciously or otherwise -- ever since Sprint became our major sponsor in March 2006. That event, which likely was the most significant development in the growth of the site, allowed me to spend more time on the content, which resulted in more traffic, which triggered more revenue, which in turn allowed me to spend more time on the site. The cycle has continued for three years, during which I’ve had periodic bouts of angst regarding whether to give up the law gig in an effort to see what would become of PFT if it were all I did. So, in many ways, this new development is a huge relief, since I won’t have to continue to think about whether to quit the exporting and focus on the importing. Third, as Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times pointed out last night, and as Peter King of SI.com likely will reiterate in his MMQB column, NBC isn’t “buying” the site. Larry Mazza and I still own PFT; the deal with NBC entails providing an exclusive license of our content. We’ll be sharing even more details on this new development in the coming days. And we know that, in the end, time will tell whether things change for the better, or the worse. We’re confident that it’ll keep getting better -- and we’re confident that you’ll agree. Until then, thanks for your past support of the site. It has helped us get to this day. We hope you’ll stick around as this crazy-ass journey continues to unfold.