A long time ago, I was a big devotee of Baseball Prospectus, a baseball site driven by the Bill James school of thought: highly valuing rigorous statistical analysis to explain performance in the sport. They always had great stuff, but I lost track of them after they partially went behind a pay wall. BP's stuff also was very professionally done despite most of the authors not being traditional journalists. It was a nice example of productive citizens media without being blogging.
Well despite my trepidations, it looks like BP is thriving. PaidContent even has them as a potential purchase for the suddenly voracious Fox Interactive Media, although a large grain of salt needs to be taken with the report.
Apropos of nothing. Wow! That BP post was my actual first item with real content. Gosh, has it been that long?