Dear Fellow Stiffs,
I launched DenverStiffs.com in February of 2008 for the purpose of being the voice of the fan and giving our beloved Denver Nuggets some extra coverage in a sports media market that was largely focused on the Broncos and was soon going to become a one-newspaper town. As a lifelong season ticket holder, I took the position that as a “paying customer” (whether that be through purchasing tickets, merchandise, or simply watching the games), I had the right to advocate for a great product both on and off the court. And even though I launched the site for myself and a small group of lifelong fans like me to vent about the team’s fortunes (and, in those days, misfortunes), it was clear from the earliest days of the site’s existence that there were countless other fans like yourselves – from around the world – yearning for a space to share their hopes and opinions about our local professional basketball team.
But managing a sports blog or fan website (or whatever they’re called these days) is no small undertaking. Not only do you have to serve up content consistently on the state of the team or the NBA in general, but you must stay on top of game previews, threads and recaps and be mindful of all the comments and opinions that those posts generate. And to be as successful and engaging as possible, a good fan site is an ongoing conversation with its readers, not a one-way street between writer and reader.
So when I had the opportunity to license Denver Stiffs to SB Nation in trade for being able to add more contributors and having to only worry about writing and conversing with all of you, I jumped at it. Not only did SB Nation give Denver Stiffs the national platform that it needed, but it gave us the infrastructure to focus on the product itself and the ethos of the site: being a die-hard Denver Nuggets fan.
Sadly – and for reasons I will not extrapolate on – just recently SB Nation decided to cease supporting most of its NBA team fan sites and many others in its vast network of sports fan sites. And even though I haven’t written consistently for Denver Stiffs for nearly seven years (and thanks largely to an awesome crew of successive site managers and contributors I was able to quietly step away), as the person who founded this site and as someone who is immeasurably grateful to all of you who still follow it, I felt obligated to keep it alive. I just couldn’t sit idly by as the community that we have all created together was threatened with extinction and thus decided to steer Stiffs to a platform that values our incredible community.
And that platform, effective March 31st, is Mile High Sports.
Not only because Mile High Sports is locally owned and operated, but also because Mile High Sports CEO Nate Lundy and his team have welcomed us enthusiastically with open arms and the opportunity to grow our community even further once we get settled into our new home.
This is a homecoming of sorts for Denver Stiffs as there would be no Denver Stiffs without the support of those who now steward and share their many talents at Mile High Sports.
When Nate was serving as Program Director for 104.3 The Fan a decade ago, would routinely book me as a guest to appear on several of their radio programs.
Mile High Sports radio stars Sandy Clough, Eric Goodman and the late, great Les Shapiro – Sandy with The Fan at the time, Eric and Les with Mile High Sports – would feature me as a regular guest while mentoring and encouraging me “offline” to change the moniker of the site (which was originally launched under the regrettable name of FireGeorgeKarl.com and changed to DenverStiffs.com soon thereafter).
And former Mile High Sports Publisher and current Editor Doug Ottewill would occasionally have me contribute my Nuggets content to Mile High Sports Magazine.
Without the citywide platform given to me by Nate, Sandy, Eric, Les and Doug, Denver Stiffs may never have attracted SB Nation’s attention or reached the audience that it continues to reach today. And of course, by joining Mile High Sports, Denver Stiffs will be reunited with former Stiffs writers Jeff Morton and Ryan Blackburn, each of whom were integral in the growth and success of Denver Stiffs long before and since I stepped away from regular writing in 2016. In fact, hat tip goes to my brother and former Stiffs comments sparring partner Jeff for encouraging me to connect with Nate on this incredible opportunity to partner with Mile High Sports.
Now let’s talk about some logistics.
To the surprise of no one who has been following SB Nation’s decision to no longer support the majority of their individual team websites, Denver Stiffs was one of the sites targeted to be shut down effective March 31st.
Given that this transition is happening quickly and we won’t get the data export from SB Nation until the 31st, some things may appear a bit “broken” for a bit … so please bear with us while we scramble to stand up a new Stiffs at Mile High Sports.
None of your previous comments will be included in the data transfer, and you won’t be able to access them on or after March 31st. However, you can request an export of your comments from the My Profile tab of any comments section, but you must do that by March 30th (this seems to be an automated process, so it should work up until the switchover). We also won’t get any of your FanPosts or FanShots unfortunately.
But we will be enabling comments on the new Denver Stiffs site at Mile High Sports, so while the loss of historical comments and other content sucks, our Stiffs community isn’t going anywhere.
And please note that Denver Stiffs’ current site manager Brandon “Skip” Ewing and contributor Gage Bridgford will be coming aboard the new Denver Stiffs, as well. Our goal in the short term is to ensure that our community’s engagement with each other and the Nuggets continues through the postseason (hopefully a looong postseason!). And then soon into the offseason, we will strategize with the Mile High Sports team on how to deliver the best possible community engagement and content befitting the Denver Stiffs name heading into the 2023-24 NBA Season.
I want to thank you all in advance for your patience and understanding as we migrate Denver Stiffs over to Mile High Sports. If you have any questions or suggestions for how we can improve Denver Stiffs, please feel free to contact editor@milehighsports.com.
In the meantime, let’s hope our Nuggets make it to their first-ever NBA Finals so we can enjoy this journey together!
Much love to Stiffs Nation,
Andrew Feinstein
