SB Nation and Sportico are both part of Penske Media Corporation’s PMX Global division.

SB Nation is launching an app to pull together content and chats from its network of close to 200 team- and league-focused sports communities.

The launch comes as artificial intelligence impacts the amount of web search traffic media publishers receive and algorithmic, video-heavy social media feeds alter how fans connect with each other on game days.

The app’s home page will feature a personalized list of posts from a user’s preferred sites, with another tab dedicated to game threads.

“People are exhausted by the toxicity of the conversation on social, but they’re also exhausted by feeling like AI worms its way into these conversations,” SB Nation’s head of network John Ness said. “What we supply to folks is like, I feel like I’m talking to real fans who care about what I care about, and it feels like once again I’m having an authentic conversation about the team that spends so much time in my brain overall.”

Ness added that users currently talk about being a member of one of the company’s communities, such as the Philadelphia Eagles’ Bleeding Green Nation, but—until now—there was no formal way to signal that support. An audience of readers who go directly to a site is increasingly valuable as certain media leaders talk about a future in which Google potentially sends them close to zero referral traffic if AI answers become more popular. 

SB Nation sees more than 1 million comments across its sites each month, with that number up nearly 20% this year, the company said. 

“We are lucky to have been building our moat for over a decade at this point,” Ness said. “If Google decides to only serve AI tomorrow, we feel like we’re in a really strong place.”

Along with the app launch, SB Nation is debuting a new community, NFC East Mixtape, which will include coverage and conversation about the NFL’s Commanders, Cowboys, Eagles and Giants in a single place.

Penske Media Corporation acquired SB Nation and other former Vox Media brands this summer and created a new subsidiary called PMX that includes the Vox titles plus its existing portfolio of brands.