Deadspin owner suspends talks with staff, plans move to Chicago

The CEO of Deadspin’s owner announced Friday that the company is suspending negotiations with unionized staff and moving Deadspin from New York to Chicago. 

The sports news website hasn’t posted content in more than a month as writers demanded editorial independence, leading to mass resignations at the publication.

According to a statement published by the union in October, Jim Spanfeller, the CEO of G/O Media, formerly Gawker Media, curtailed some of the publication’s most well-read coverage because it made him “personally uncomfortable.”

In the letter on Friday, Spanfeller said that employees wishing to return to the publications now Chicago-based office are welcome to. 

“As I’m sure you know, over the past few months our efforts to operate and then restart Deadspin have been severely hampered by Union-represented employees’ concerted, divisive actions and their continued objections to our managerial decisions,” Spanfeller wrote.

“While we strongly disagree with the positions taken and the views asserted by the Union and its members on this issue, we have become even more concerned by the damaging impact these actions have had on those who want to work for Deadspin and our current editorial management who now refuse to partake in the recruitment process.”

The union posted a statement shortly after saying that “nobody in this bargaining unit is surprised that, once again, Jim Spanfeller has demonstrated jaw dropping lack of understanding of the business he acquired.”

“Moving Deadspin to Chicago will not solve the problem that Jim never understood Deadspin, and did everything in his power to kill it,” the statement reads. “The members of this bargaining unit vehemently object to this decision. You’ll be hearing more from us on these issues soon.”