Sports Home Jomboy Media Lays Off Roughly 10% of Workers in Staffing Reversal
Jomboy Media has laid off roughly 10% of its 60-plus person staff, according to multiple people familiar with the changes who requested anonymity because the discussions are private. The company is dealing with the economic headwinds facing the entire media industry but still expects to increase revenue in 2023 versus last year.
A representative for Jomboy Media declined to comment on the reductions.
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The company has been on a massive hiring spree. A fawning September 2022 profile in The New York Times said the workforce had nearly tripled to 64 employees since 2021. In July 2022, Jomboy Media hired Andrew Patterson, the former senior director of new media at MLB Advanced Media, to be its first CEO.
Jomboy—the creation of Jimmy “Jomboy” O’Brien and his business partner, Jake Storiale—was founded in 2017 with O’Brien sharing baseball content on his social media feeds that connected with a younger audience. It has quickly grown into a multimedia sports and entertainment company with podcasts, digital shows and TV shows.
In a reflection of how the media landscape has changed, New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone shifted his weekly appearance from ESPN Radio’s “The Michael Kay Show” to Jomboy’s “Talkin’ Jake” podcast. O’Brien’s following soared after he deciphered Boone’s infamous “savages in the box” rant in 2019.
Last year, Jomboy closed a $5 million funding round led by Connect Ventures, a partnership between CAA and New Enterprise Associates. New investors also included the WWE, CC Sabathia, Billy Crystal, Karl-Anthony Towns, Trea Turner and Dwyane Wade. Reddit and Seven Seven Six founder Alexis Ohanian also participated in the round and has hyped the brand on Twitter. “Fact is @Jomboy has made me care about the @MLB,” Ohanian posted.
Jomboy has 1.75 million subscribers on YouTube, and the company produces four of the top 15 baseball podcasts, according to Chartable.
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