If you read carefully, this is almost a technology decision. They specifically mention the cms they had to use at aol as being very old, and that the cms in use at SB Nation has great support for live-events and ad-hoc tabular data.
A couple years ago, I made a post on one of their sites and was surprised to see it use my real name. I'm not sure how it did that (no, I've never had an AOL account). It disturbed me and I've never touched it, since.
I know the content creators have always despised the forum system, too. It supposedly was completely redone this year, but when I looked at it, it seemed exactly the same to me.