As is the case with so many strategic partnerships, money isn’t involved and it’s non-exclusive. Fanhouse has more traffic—AOL (NYSE: TWX) says about 10-to-11 million uniques depending on the month, while SBNation claims 7.5 million uniques across its network—and the AOL firehose to tap into. But AOL’s Marty Moe, SVP of MediaGlow, suspects the overlap is minimal and the traffic exchange will be incremental.

He also doesn’t see any competition with SBNation’s national ambitions: “The direction we’re going in is to be among the premier national brands for high-quality premium sports journalism.” That’s why AOL has emphasized building a staff of strong national correspondents. (Today the site adds Thomas George, a veteran football writer for the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) and NFL.com.) He adds, “What makes [SBNation] engaging and unique is that it’s a blogger network with intense fans that are writing. Each has a different appeal.”