FAQ
What is Crossing Broad?
Crossing Broad is Philadelphia’s irreverent sports blog, founded by Kyle Scott Laskowski in 2009. You could say that CB began as a baseball blog, with a heavy focus on the successful Phillies teams of that era. Over the years, Kyle (aka The Maestro) grew the site into an independent powerhouse with a unique voice and fan-first perspective on Philadelphia sports and media coverage. Crossing Broad ultimately branched out into podcasting, apparel, and numerous other areas while growing an audience of several million readers.
In 2017, Kyle brought on a pair of investors to grow the site and build the staff, which saw a half dozen writers join the fold. A little less than two years later, when the Supreme Court made the ruling that paved the way for legalized sports betting, Maestro leaned on his experience in digital and affiliate marketing to build a brand new business model, resulting in XLMedia acquiring the site in a multi-million dollar deal.
Kyle continued with Crossing Broad as an XLM Vice President for two years before departing in late 2022 to pursue new endeavors. You can follow him on Twitter at @KyleScottL.
Who runs the site now?
Kevin Kinkead is the site editor. Kyle Pagan is a full-time contributor and the rest of the staff includes Bob Wankel, Russ Joy, Anthony SanFilippo, Coggin Toboggan, and Tim Reilly.
Is this a sports journalism website?
Not really. We’re a blog. Our bread and butter is tongue-in-cheek riffing on the sports matters of the day. That can come in many forms, be it straight reaction, aggregation, column writing, and listicles. We use a lot of satire and snark and a good portion of what we write is flippant and goofy. Sometimes people are not aware of this and think we’re being serious, so we try to be obvious when we’re joking around and having fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and the goal of the website is to inform and entertain at the same time. If you had a laugh but also learned something, then we’ve succeeded.
But you sometimes do real journalism, right?
Absolutely. Most of our guys have journalism, writing, and teaching backgrounds. Anthony has broken numerous Flyers stories over the years, like the lawsuit filed by trainers against the team. Kevin gets the occasional scoop and has authored several deep dives on local news media, examining the inner workings of The Philadelphia Inquirer and NBC Sports Philadelphia. We do a running series of branded columns as well, such as the award-winning “50 Hot Takes.”
Do you only write about sports?
No, we cover other topics that Philly sports fans might find interesting. Pagan does his “man on the street” videos as well, which take him all over the region.
Do you guys cover the teams in person?
We have credentials for all of the teams but we are not at every game. We don’t have full-time beat writers like the Inquirer does, and while it’s important to keep up a part-time presence for credibility purposes, our brand isn’t heavily reliant on in-person reporting or quote gathering.
Why do you keep writing about Carson Wentz and Ben Simmons? It’s time to move on and let it go.
Let what go? Site traffic patterns show that readers are interested in keeping up with high-profile former Philadelphia athletes.
Why share commentary from Colin Cowherd/Skip Bayless/other talking heads? They’re just looking for attention.
Well sure, but part of what we do is keep tabs on mainstream and local media and point out who is authentic and who is fake. Plus, attention is not currency. These guys aren’t taking Crossing Broad articles and bringing them to contract talks. The people who say that all publicity is good publicity are wrong, because if everyone thinks you’re an idiot, then congratulations, all you’ve done is successfully grabbed the lowest-hanging fruit from the sports media tree.
Why do you hate Sports Radio 94 WIP?
We don’t hate 94 WIP or sports talk radio. Some (not all) guys on the staff think Angelo Cataldi and Howard Eskin are frauds. If anyone gets ripped on this website, it’s probably because they’re bullshitters or they’re bullshitting Philadelphia sports fans.
What is RADIO WARS?
RADIO WARS is a brand that Kyle started back in the day to document the ridiculous back-and-forth between WIP and 97.5 the Fanatic talent. The height of RADIO WARS was 2015, when Josh Innes and Tony Bruno were continually butting heads with Mike Missanelli and absurd behavior was the daily norm. We still do RADIO WARS stories these days, but obviously the WIP/Fanatic thing is much less contentious than it used to be.
CONTACT US
Have a question, comment, tip or advertising inquiry? Contact Crossing broad at kevin.k@xlmedia.com.
