The future of LAG Confidential

Bad news.

Monday morning in a blog post titled “Thank you California”, SB Nation announced the decision to lay off hundreds of independent contractors across the state. As executive director John Ness explains, the passage of AB5 signed into law by governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday made the current business structure untenable. As a result bloggers living in California and those out of state covering Cali teams will not have their contracts renewed, including myself and Angels on Parade’s Alicia Rodriguez.

This explanation has been hotly contested: On social media, the comments section of the article, rival publications and even fellow blogs have weighed in. Ultimately it’s up to you to decide who’s responsible for the debacle.

It’s a strange feeling to be let go at a time when LAG Confidential was experiencing serious growth, as an outlet for the fanbase and an influential voice on and off the field. Thanks in no small part to the Galaxy community (#GalaxyTwitter!), we broke 500,000 page views during the 2018 MLS season for the first time. We’re projected to land just shy of 700,000 this year.

Across town our friends at Angels of Parade were experiencing similar growth. After all, it was in tandem with the SB Nation LAFC community that we defied the pundits and “El Trafico” was born.

Regardless of who’s to blame me and Alicia did not fail, we were simply failed.

What’s going to happen to LAG Confidential? As things stand the blog will continue to exist in its current form through March of 2020.

My own future at the company is uncertain. I can say we are actively working on a solution and we’ll provide updates on social media at an appropriate time.

Until then, we’ll always have the memories.