Blogs: www.withleather.com and kissmesuzy.blogspot.com
Interview with: Matt Ufford
How many founders did With Leather/KSK have and what are their names?
First off, let me say that WL and KSK have no official ties to each other, other than that I write for both. I founded KSK in June of ‘06 with Big Daddy Drew, Unsilent Majority, Monday Morning Punter, and a fifth Beatle who left the blog shortly thereafter. After that happened, we added Christmas Ape and flubby. Those are all real names, of course.
As for With Leather, Ryan Perry (the owner of Fat Penguin Media) and I hatched the idea for it in August/September of ‘06. With the exception of the couple days I’ve taken off over the last year-plus since the October ‘06 launch, all the posts during the work week are written by me. My asssitant editor Kevin DeBruin tackles our daily link dump and weekend duties.
What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?
I majored in history and political science, then served four years in the Marines before moving to New York to try to be a writer. So my qualifications as a sports writer are pretty impeccable. I assure you, the rest of the KSK staff is equally qualified. To write jokes about masturbation.
What does your website do?
Mostly KSK and WL just take up bandwidth and waste people’s time. With Leather’s a tabloid that focuses on sports gossip (celebrity connections and offbeat police blotter items are favorite topics), while KSK is a humor site dedicated to the NFL.
What was KSK/With Leather’s Tipping Points? (When traffic really started to go up)
Both sites have done well from the get-go. In its infancy, KSK got a consistent boost from Deadspin, while With Leather was propped up by GorillaMask.net. But both have their own loyal followings now.
Still, if I had to pick tipping points, Big Daddy Drew’s F–k it, I’m Throwing Deep post that gave birth to Rex Grossman’s “Sex Cannon” character garnered a lot of attention for KSK, while the shitstorm — can I say shitstorm? — around Allison Stokke definitely got With Leather plenty of press, for better and worse.
What types of marketing have you done?
For KSK, none. For With Leather, I dunno. The nice thing about writing for someone else is that I don’t worry about the numbers or the marketing side at all.
Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?
For KSK, we have no ads and no revenue streams besides a couple t-shirt sales, though that may change eventually. We’ve always just done it because it’s fun. I believe that’s what the kids call “keping it real.” Or “foolishly not making money.”
At With Leather, like I said, I have no control over the ads. I’m blissfully ignorant of how money gets from the advertisers to my bank account.
Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?
I’ve never thought about it before, but I guess I’d consider Ryan an angel. I think he’d be flattered by that.
Any bold predictions for sports and the internet in the future?
I honestly have no idea. I’m sure print magazines will continue their slow decline towards their inevitable death rattle, and I hope that as they move online, blogs continue to gain more readers. That’s not really a “bold” prediction, though. I’m not exactly a visionary. I’m just another asshole with a blog. Well, two blogs.
STN’s Take:
As you can tell Matt is a very entertaining writer and both With Leather and KSK will keep you laughing out loud on a daily basis. Pretty amazing that KSK has kept it real for this long with all the traffic they bring in. After all they are one of STN’s Top 25 Sports Blogs. If you haven’t checked either blog out, make sure you visit them when you get a chance. They can help your boring day at work go much faster.
