OK. Leaving aside that the whole article kind of smells of self-justification over the approach of the LA Times itself to reporting actual news vs. opinion, there's a mathematical issue here. If Deadspin were relatively unpopular with sports fans, their non-sports content would naturally be relatively popular due to it's general audience appeal. And even if this weren't true, most fans care about their particular sport, meaning that the non-sports articles will by the same logic have better viewership even if they are less popular with every given segment of the Deadspin audience. Thus, the content can be "well received" without actually building the site's target audience(s), the targeted audience(s) for which their advertisers pay an (assumed) premium.