"[1] Gannett purchased Fantasy Sports Ventures on January 24, 2012, integrating the site into the digital network of USA Today.

[5] On May 23, 2024, Adweek reported that The Big Lead would be shut down as part of the integration of the editorial rights to Sports Illustrated into the company.

For many years, the site staged what it called a "Culture Tournament", in which 64 different sports figures, celebrities or other items of relevance (such as "Michael Phelps' Bong Hit," in which the Olympic Gold medal swimmer was caught smoking marijuana in 2009) are seeded in a bracket styled after that used to outline teams competing in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

[8] The Big Lead first gained notoriety after it obtained interviews with syndicated sportswriter and ESPN Poker commentator Norman Chad, and Kansas City Star and Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock.

The surge in activity overloaded the website's servers, knocking The Big Lead offline for about 48 hours, before the site was restored on April 7.