Last month, ESPN announced the phone number list closure of sports journalism destination Grantland. Hearing the news, I immediately thought of the missed opportunity by brands such as Nike, Under Armor and Puma to acquire the site. Grantland is a well-known brand with high traffic and loyal subscribers, and given that Nike spends over $3 billion per year on advertising and demand creation (according to Nike reports), the company could buy the phone number list active for a song (comparably). Outside of Grantland, a key question remains: why aren't companies more considering buying media brands and blogger sites as a shortcut to building a content brand with some teeth? As we discussed a lot at the phone number list Content Marketing Institute, building a content platform takes time, patience, and focus…those three things aren't part of most brands' DNA. With big companies brimming with cash today (Apple has over $200 billion in cash reserves and could buy The New York Times 100 times that), it seems prudent to consider “buying versus building” phone number list as a viable option during this content marketing gold rush. Natural in the media world I have had the phone number list opportunity to participate in many mergers and acquisitions during my 16 years in publishing. When a media company targets an audience and sees an opportunity for growth, the phone number list buy versus build scenario is ALWAYS considered. This rating is natural for publishers and VERY unnatural for marketers. In 99% of the cases where we bring this idea to marketers at large companies, the overall reaction from the phone number list marketing team is complete bewilderment. They never even thought of it. Significant Barriers Jay Acunzo posted a thoughtful reaction to my original article on Grantland. While Jay is a believer in the phone number list idea of ​​brands buying media companies or blogger sites, he believes journalists, upon hearing the news phone number list of being bought by a non-media company. Any really great media property with well-known and reputable writers would instantly lose that staff as soon as the news was acquired by a brand. Even if this brand was as great as Nike. “Brands don't have a reputation for maintaining and protecting editorial excellence, as well as the muscle memory to put audiences first. These things create the kind of prestige needed to attract top creative talent. In theory, Jay is right. The phone number list majority of journalists still believe that telling stories for brands is like going to the phone number list dark side. Also, most brands don't think of the audience first…the brand or product is usually the hero of the story.