Hey gang, it's Wes Schlag here with The Hustle, ready to bring you up to speed on the biggest business news of the day. And boy do I have some stories for you. Tumblr keeps on tumblin' after Verizon revealed plans to sell off the beleaguered blog builder last week. But fear not, blog-heads, adult film giant and online content pioneer Pornhub has expressed interest in buying it.In fact, they're the only ones considering buying it at this point — because, as it turns out, this isn't 2010 and nobody cares about blogs — that is, unless you're a porn site. At its peak, the ex-blog hosting mecca saw a whopping 13 billion page views a month — a number that has since plummeted to 420 million (which, if you ask me, still sounds pretty chill, but that's the biz we're livin' in, babay). The tumble convinced Tumblr's ex-owner Yahoo, which acquired the company for $1.1 billion in 2013, to pass it off to Verizon for nearly a quarter of its original value — and it has been downhill pretty much ever since. Back in December, Tumblr saw a 17% dip in viewership after the company banned adult content from its site. Now, it all comes full circle with Pornhub, which has been courting Tumblr users ever since the blog platform ditched the itch for naughty content.
TV broadcasting giant Sinclair Broadcast Group is rippin' and roarin' to buy 21 regional sports networks from Disney in a $10.6 billion deal.That's a lot of tickle — but Disney certainly isn't hurting for pennies, so why so eager to sell off its cavalcade of prestige reeg' if there's clearly still a market? Turns out, the house that Mouse built was forced to sell off the regional networks it took on as part of its $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets over anti-competitive concerns. There you have it — while it may not seem like it, there are actually rules that keep even the likes of Disney from total content domination. Who are we kidding? Disney owns Star Wars — oh, and this just in: It owns Marvel too. And I wouldn't expect Disney to divest its interests in those box-office powerhouses anytime soon.
Continuing the sports beat ...
Women's professional hockey's on thin ice after pro female ice hockey players from Canada and the U.S. announced they'll be riding the pine this upcoming season. Until last week, there were two pro women's leagues in North America — the NWHL and the CWHL. Didn't know that? That's because you're not watching enough regional sports content. After the CWHL closed, 200 players announced their refusal to play in the NWHL until it improves working conditions for its players. Get this: Pro women's hockey players don't even have health insurance, and some make as little as $2,000 per season — which leaves a lot of pro hockey players competing for temp jobs when they're not carving up the ice. Now, united under the banner of #ForTheGame, the top women stick danglers are insisting on salaries no less than $25,000 to play professionally. Call me a snowflake, but as physical as hockey is, how is no health insurance even legal? On top of that, they're barely making enough money to afford Band-Aids. Talk about time in the penalty box.
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