Key signings mark Bleacher Report's arrival in Britain

Having gone to America to work on a sports site, SJA member WILL TIDEY now heralds the Bleacher Report’s arrival in Britain

The Bleacher Report story started in 2007, on America’s west coast and with four friends who saw a gap in the market for fan-centric content. The big teams weren’t covered in enough detail; the smaller teams were hardly covered at all. They wanted to fix that.

Five years later, and having been acquired en route by Turner Sports, Bleacher Report has grown to become one of the biggest players in the American online sports market. Our Team Stream mobile app has been influential in that growth, but the biggest reason for Bleacher Report’s success can be found in the a commitment to invest in the best writers and video talent in the business.

In this time of prolific sports desk job losses and cuts, Bleacher Report is that rare story of a company which is aggressively seeking growth and actively recruiting paid sports editorial staff. While others are firing, we’re still hiring.

Our arrival in Britain is testament to that fact. A London office, in the Turner House building we share with our stablemates at CNN, was opened in July and we have quickly set about hiring some of the best people in the business.

Lee Walker, our UK managing editor, joined Bleacher Report having made the Eurosport-Yahoo! website into a success story. Alex Livie, recently-appointed world football assignment editor in London, arrives with a wealth of experience, most recently as managing editor at ESPN.co.uk.

As we continue to expand our football coverage, Stan Collymore, Jonathan Wilson, Guillem Balague and Andy Brassell are among the initial wave of marquee hires to illustrate our commitment to quality output. All four will be contributing to our written and video output at Bleacher Report UK.

More will follow, along with respected voices in cricket, F1 and rugby. In addition. we have staffed the London office with respected names in the industry. We’ve also added copy editors, breaking news writers and Premier League club correspondents, who are based up and down the country. There will also be a commitment to invest in video.

I’ve been with Bleacher Report for more than three years now and I’m heavily biased, but I will say they are hands down the best company that I’ve worked for. There’s a great mix of youth and experience, and a real onus on showing creative initiative. We really feel that our product, both on mobile and web, is giving fans something they’re missing.

The least you can do is try it out.

Visit www.bleacherreport.com to see the site’s UK-facing homepage. You can download the Team Stream app, for free, at iTunes.