Univision Communications, the Spanish-language media company, agreed Tuesday to buy certain assets of Gawker Media in a bankruptcy auction, marking the end of publisher-owner Nick Denton's heated reign at the online publisher.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. But Univision paid about $ 135 million, according to a person familiar with the deal. The person asked to speak anonymously because the financial terms are not revealed publicly.
“Gawker Media Group has agreed this evening to sell our business and popular brands to Univision,” Denton said in a statement. “I am pleased that our employees are protected and will continue their work under new ownership — disentangled from the legal campaign against the company.”
Gawker Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June and put its assets up for sale, unable to continue business after a jury ordered the company to pay about $ 140 million to Hulk Hogan following an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit brought by the former pro wrestler.
Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, sued Gawker after the site posted a video in 2012 of him having sex with his former best friend’s wife. Bollea (Hogan) was listed as Gawker’s biggest creditor in its bankruptcy filing.
After Gawker Media sought bankruptcy protection, Ziff Davis, the digital publisher of AskMen, PCMag and Computer Shopper, immediately placed a bid for its assets — with about $ 100 million as the opening price — before the auction was underway. Ziff Davis sought to buy Gawker’s blogs — but not assume its liabilities — if no other offer had emerged.
But Univision subsequently jumped into the fray with its own bid. Univision is increasingly amassing online publishing sites to broaden and diversify its audiences, particularly going after the Millennials.
Earlier this year, Univision bought from the Walt Disney Co. a stake in Fusion that it didn't already own. Its newly created Fusion Media group now operates humor site The Onion, African-American news site The Root, and Flama, a news-and-entertainment site for young Hispanic Americans.
Meanwhile, Gawker’s properties, which also include Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Deadspin, continued to operate during bankruptcy proceedings.
Denton, the British journalist and entrepreneur who founded Gawker in 2002 and was its principal shareholder, also filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month, fearing that Hogan would be able to start seizing Denton's assets.
Hogan’s lawsuit has stirred heated discussions among media critics and on social media after it was revealed that Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire and co-founder of PayPal, funded Hogan’s legal costs. In 2007, Valleywag, a Gawker Media blog, posted a story about Thiel — "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."
First Amendment advocates say third-party-funded lawsuits pose threats for news organizations and undermine aggressive reporting.
Denton has said Thiel’s campaign amounts to “a personal vendetta” and that "it's disturbing to live in a world in which a billionaire can bully journalists because he didn't like the coverage.”
In an editorial published in The New York Times Monday, Thiel defended his actions and said the site "routinely published thinly sourced, nasty articles that attacked and mocked people."
Follow USA TODAY media reporter Roger Yu on Twitter @ByRogerYu.
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