A Brunch Review Site Sells to a Sports-Community Company: The Acquisition That Bought "the Readers' Weekend Hours"
Bitches Who Brunch, a brunch review site with over a million monthly pageviews, was sold to Volo Sports, an operator of adult recreational sports leagues. A buyer seemingly unrelated to media came for "the same demographic's weekend hours" — a case that widens the lens on buyer selection.
This is a translation of the Japanese original. The Japanese version and cited primary sources are authoritative for all figures.
What happened
Bitches Who Brunch is a brunch (weekend breakfast-plus-lunch) review site that started in Washington, D.C. With urban women in their 20s and 30s as its readership, its restaurant reviews and event coverage drew more than a million pageviews a month. The buyer was a surprise — Volo Sports, an operator of adult recreational sports leagues. Not a media company, not a restaurant company.
The idea of buying “the adjacent slot in people’s lives”
Volo Sports runs leagues where young urban professionals play kickball or soccer on weekends. Its participants and the brunch site’s readers are essentially the same people — same age, same neighborhoods, same disposable income, same way of spending a weekend. Spotting the adjacency in life’s schedule — sports on weekend mornings, brunch at midday — Volo bought the media property as a source of post-game hangout spots, a partner-restaurant network, and advertising inventory.
Generalize the logic of the acquisition and it reads like this: what the buyer is purchasing is not “content” but “regular access to a specific group of people” — and content-industry peers are far from the only ones who want that.
Practical lessons for sellers
The search for a media buyer tends to start from “a list of media companies in the same genre,” but this case teaches how to widen the search radius. The question to ask is: “who else wants my readers’ wallets and hours?” Makers of the products your readers buy, operators of the places where they gather, companies that want to hire them — a neighbor with no connection to content can outbid your industry peers.
David’s Bridal, a dress retailer, buying Rustic Wedding Chic and Lulu, a printing company, buying The Tilt share the same structure: the market of media buyers is far larger than “the media industry.”
Related reading
Sources
This article summarizes and analyzes the public sources above. Please refer to the primary sources for details.