Chat Sports: Literally the worst...
Question: Does Ace Williams need to be a real person to be considered persona non grata around here?
This article explains a TON. It's both great schadenfreude and also very aggravating that someone so shitty can get as far as Yoder did.
Synopsis - Chat Sports basically made all their money by faking a ton of shit. Their founder should probably be in prison. And to top it off, apparently Fake Ace Williams threatened to fight real Ace Anbender. It's about as perfect a metaphorical car wreck as one could ask. Interesting read...
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:46 PM ^
in before the lock.
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:49 PM ^
This won't get locked, but nice try. How about you read the article?
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:47 PM ^
You know there was a rule about not mentioning a certain someone by name!
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:50 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:47 PM ^
Just got done reading that too. The key paragraph for mgoblog:
In its early days, Chat Sports posted original content from many different writers—some of those bylines, like Rick Steele or Tipp Smith, have Twitter accounts that have tweeted only one time. Were they fake? Yoder says yes. “Absolutely we had fake writers,” he says. “That’s because we’re a scrappy company. What do you have when you start a company? You have zero traffic, you have zero name brand… So we had a writer program for college-aged kids… and sometimes they had information about things that they didn’t really feel comfortable writing in their own names. Some people think that’s such a terrible thing—‘journalistic integrity!’—that’s called growth hacking.”
Rick Steele or Tipp Smith.... or Ace Williams.
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:08 PM ^
I am just wondering why they didn't go all the way with "Steele Tipp"? That named would be the BALLS! DEEPLY cool...
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:48 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:00 PM ^
I found it somewhat challenging to sort out the total sleezeballs from the partial sleezeballs. But everyone in the story it seemed had some sleezeballosity to them. This is NOT a political statement in any way shape or form but if anyone needed an example of fake news - these guys were specialists in creating it.
I need to go take a shower after reading that.
February 22nd, 2017 at 4:57 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:00 PM ^
While chat sports is terrible, I consider the way the word literally is used so liberally today the worst.
Kindly get off my lawn now.
(Pretty interesting article though, so thanks for posting.)
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:03 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:28 PM ^
One might say you meant literously.
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:28 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:56 PM ^
Illiterally.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:59 PM ^
February 23rd, 2017 at 8:27 AM ^
is his own show by being such an unbearable douche.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:01 PM ^
Uh, Brian alread did the research on this. Ace Williams used images from a model for his avatar and was IP-traced to a high school.
Thanks?
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:06 PM ^
February 23rd, 2017 at 2:45 PM ^
The article that says ChatSports was shady and fake?
Next week are you going to tell me that the sun is hot and that Grizzly Adams had a beard?
Truly riveting stuff.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:09 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:09 PM ^
Except that "Ace Williams" was exposed as a fraud and Chat Sports has now, in this article and in an attempt to defend themselves, confirmed that they used fake authors, verifying Brian's findings. Further, the behavior of Yoder as described in the headline is so startlingly similar to that of Williams that the only reason I have not to believe that they are the same person is that it is unlikely that Yoder was producing fake original content for so many different teams.
There's the made up sources, the promised deal/explosive story, the stalling and stringing along, the gaslighting, all of it. "Ace Williams" did all of that stuff.
The only disappointing thing is that "Ace Williams" probably was indeed in high school and even if he was in fact exposed it would probably be a joyless exercise revealing the identity of someone who was an idiot teenager (hey, I've been an idiot teenager) who has now moved on with life and doesn't deserve to be destroyed for his youthful silliness. Probably.
February 23rd, 2017 at 10:29 AM ^
to extrapolate the potential that Ace Williams isn't/wasn't even a real person, as part of finding that Chat Sports had other "writers" who weren't real. Heavy stuff I know.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:02 PM ^
A friend of mine from high school got involved with ChatSports when they were just developing a reputation. She had a promotional role.
I think she got out of there before their reputation got REALLY BAD, but it makes me wonder how much people who worked for Yoder knew.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:06 PM ^
Clickbait clicks on you.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:09 PM ^
How?
"I read Chat Sports. It's terrible. A real car wreck. Yet interesting."
10,000 eyeballs just went there.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:16 PM ^
you: snarky responder posting vapid comment without so much as checking the source material.
I think we can still make this work. Call me maybe?
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
Your telephone number.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:24 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:31 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:55 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:15 PM ^
I got a couple of Chat Sports shirts from Fanatics dot com
/s
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:21 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
He should fight Ace in international waters as part of a double-header
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:25 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:44 PM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:51 PM ^
It's amazing the number of people in this thread who think this is a Chat Sports article and don't realize it's a legitimate Yahoo Finance article confirming what we all knew/suspected about Chat Sports being a sham with fake writers.
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:13 PM ^
Seems to be the case. It is a very thorough article, and gives Yoder a chance to defend himself (which he does poorly). This isn't just some garden variety Chat Sports controversy; this is Chat Sports getting exposed as a fraud.
Ace, Brian, and Nick Baumgardner (at least) have all spiked the football on twitter today about this, and it is richly deserved.
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:31 PM ^
February 23rd, 2017 at 9:30 AM ^
it has actual research and true facts.
February 23rd, 2017 at 10:39 AM ^
"True fact" I may start using that.... "Michigan beat Rutgrers tonight. It's a true fact." I get to be a little silly and throw a subtle elbow at the same time.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:45 PM ^
Is this for real? This dude runs a media company and has apparently performed major fund raises/deals. As far as I know, most major deals have an escrow period - at my old investment bank, once an M&A deal was agreed to in principal and entered into close, both parties would wire our fees to an escrow account. Following the execution of the final closing docs, the funds from the escrow account were released to us. From what I understand, escrow is standard operating procedure when finalizing deals - it forces all parties to put skin in the game and therefore promotes substantive negotiations over a reasonable time frame.
It's even more stupid that he said it was "convenient" that the lawyer's email contained the word "escrow" in it. Even if Yoder's dumbass didn't know what escrow was, any corporate lawyer worth his or her salt knows what escrow is.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:56 PM ^
I think the problem here is that you're assuming he's a serious businessman that knows what he's doing. It makes way more sense if you picture ChatSports as an Entertainment 720 equivalent.
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:29 PM ^
I bring this up because this little anecdote definitively proves that Yoder is either a moron or a fraud.
February 22nd, 2017 at 8:16 PM ^
February 23rd, 2017 at 10:49 AM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:33 PM ^
Actually, I'd bet that Yoder knows exactly what escrow is, and claimed not to in order to make his lie sound credible.
His "anyone can fake emails" demonstration consisted of forwarding a forged email from his own account, but his accusation was that O'Grady sent one from a fake account. Any asshole can type up a fake email that looks like a real one, but his ability to do so had nothing to do with what he was actually claiming.
In short, Yoder is a liar, and not a very good one.
February 22nd, 2017 at 9:17 PM ^
My thoughts exactly.
February 23rd, 2017 at 5:29 AM ^
February 22nd, 2017 at 6:03 PM ^
Well this was much more in depth than I expected.