Bleacher Report Employee Reviews about "b r"

Pros

Great work life balance, management trusts you to do you work without micromanaging and listen to your input and opinion, very relaxed work environment and people are nice to work with. Great perks since B/R is under Warner Media

Cons

Company would benefit from more established processes and better internal communication on projects, though efforts are certainly being made to improve and get better

Pros

Editors are very helpful and the program is well-designed.

Cons

Some people go into the program with the hope of writing for B/R after the program is done, and they're somewhat vague about that possibility.

Pros

You essentially get paid to watch and write about sports. What's better than that? I've also been able to interview superstar athletes, cover professional sporting events and even once played basketball with some former pros. There used to be a stigma abut writing for B/R--I've been around long enough to know how suspect some of the content was--but at this point, it's an established, mostly respected journalism... brand.

Cons

The goalposts are rarely stationary. I don't think B/R has figured out what it wants to be. Sometimes, hard-hitting reporting seems to be the focus. The next minute, they're trying to be comedians. And you're never really coached on whatever they want, even though it's constantly changing. You also work on annual contracts--at least, everyone in my position did--and it's hard to get a good sense on where you stand.... Even if yours is renewed every year, there are still some tense moments every 12 months.

Advice to Management

Invest more into your homegrown employees. And figure out which direction you want to take.

Pros

I worked at B/R for several years and found many opportunities for advancement and new projects. I loved my coworkers and thought B/R did a great job of fostering community, though what I saw as a tight-knit group of coworkers/friends could certainly be perceived by newer employees as cliquish.

Cons

Sports media is a competitive industry, and the salary/hours can feel pretty rough in an expensive place like San Francisco. Things steadily changed after the Turner purchase. It's by no means bad now, it's just more corporate and less of an adventure than when I joined.

Pros

Great environment, working in sports is fun.

Cons

Quite obvious who came from Turner and who came from B/R.

Advice to Management

Bring on new hires with well rounded skill-sets, don't just look for specialized employees with your narrow mindset.

Pros

The people who work at B/R are awesome. It is a fun atmosphere with like-minded co-workers who are always willing to lend a hand. There are TVs everywhere which is amazing.

Cons

Bleacher Report could improve their professional development. They would be better off finding distinct structure or pathways for their employees to move up.

Advice to Management

Management has chanced since I worked there so I don't have much of an opinion. The only thing I would say is that there are loads of skilled employees who will shine if given more opportunities.

Pros

The location is very good, located in downtown San Francisco. The bad part about that who people who work at B/R can afford to live in the city.

Cons

Employees make staggeringly low wages, and never get raises. There's the yearly 2-5% bump, but that puts average incomes way, way below what comparably employed workers in SF make. Management almost never promotes, and it's a boys club that "innocently" bullies lower staff, knowing that they're keeping the staff captive. When a negative glassdoor review goes up, there have been known to be witch-hunts. The... CEO is completely disconnected, and once or twice a year will make some ridiculous video of himself in a football helmet or something to try to show Turner that he's "one of the guys." Not one employee doesn't see right through it.

Advice to Management

Maybe at least pretend you're a grown-up company and treat your workers like they are people.

Pros

I really enjoyed my time at Bleacher Report. Great people, great company, great atmosphere. I left to pursue a new career because I wanted to try something new, but it was very difficult to leave BR. I felt like I was treated well, and learned a lot from some really smart people. And as a sports fan, I was able to enjoy sports during the day, which was a definite plus. I also personally enjoyed having the support of... a big company Turner - opened up the possibilities for what we could do and how we could grow. The office itself is also great. I realize it will be difficult to find a work environment like B/R again.

Cons

I think the only thing for me would be that a lot of the people who I had gotten to know over my time there had gone on to pursue new things, so a lot of fresh faces in the office. I think that's just a natural part of any company, especially a relatively young but growing one, to have people come and go. And often those people leaving were doing so for good opportunities within the company, like some people moved... from SF to NY or London but remained at BR. For others, they had just reached a limit of what they could do at BR - which again I don't think is a strike against BR, but just that the kind of people they hire are go-getters. So it was natural for those people to move on. And i definitely liked the people who were still there, as I mentioned the people are one of the best parts of the company. But as someone who had been there a while, the office was maybe a little less familiar than when I had first started, when the company was a smaller startup.

Advice to Management

I would maybe splurge on engineering talent, which I know is difficult and competitive in the Bay Area, but that's where the big opportunity is to me. Otherwise, I felt like I was managed really well in my time there, from my direct report all the way up the ladder. Got a lot of opportunities to interact with higher-up people in the company, and almost always found it valuable.