Lots of support, great place to leverage into a bigger gig, but so, so low pay
Pros
Fansided treats its writers OK, giving support when you ask for it, be it technical, editorial, or just plain ol' advice. I was a site expert and editors above me constantly checked in on me and pointed me in the right direction, or what they thought the direction should be, mainly pushing me towards writing long-form and slideshows, mostly slideshows. If you want to start out writing and making a name for yourself without having to deal with hosting, site management and, need a support system, Fansided is a good place to start.
Cons
Site expert at the time, pay was like $1.50 per 1,000 views which is literally a $1.50 RPM score, abysmal by blogging standards. As other reviews have mentioned, regular contributors got $1 per $1,000, horrifyingly low and slightly better than getting no pay at all. The real slap in the face for me, as a site expert, is when another site expert comes on you're literally supposed to split the site expert earnings between you two. Say for example you blogged your heart out, the other site expert did the bare miniumum and together the site hit 500,000 views for the month, both of you would split $750 or $375 respectivly. That is not a fair and sustaininable way to treat your highest earners. That is what happened in my case and why I ultimately left. I was doing all the heavy lifting, blogging five or more pieces a day and the other site expert's work, frankly, sucked, but he came in and took half my earnings. Insulting. I know manage my own blog, which is super easy to set up with hosting, url, and site management through wordpress and realized I easily make around $5 per 1000 views with just plain ol' Adsense, which is still on the low end of what I can earn. Partner with an ad agency and your blog can make $13 per 1000 views. Ya, that whole splitting the pay between site experts killed it for me.