The Vol Network tonight announced the passing of legendary broadcaster John Ward.

Sigh.

Rest in peace.

Sources -- Kawhi requests Magic-Buss meeting

Ok, props on the headline.

(I don't follow the NBA really, so maybe it's been done before but it got my attention.)

ESPN is reporting that Teddy Bruschi had a stroke.

After 5,060 consecutive games, 81 year John Sterling took yesterday off.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/s...g-yankees.html

It was a Monday tradition for me to read his column along with Peter King's during my Monday lunch hour.

RIP

The best tribute I think I can have for him is that for as much as he published, I know nothing about him personally.

In a time when the story is almost as much about the reporter as the reported (see, e.g., the fact that we even have a sports media thread here), he was a nice throwback to just giving us the story without a six-paragraph lead-in about what it was like for him growing up as a Dolphins fan or whatever.

Crazy story from New Orleans.

WWL Radio personality Seth Dunlap is openly gay. The WWL official media account tweeted out a gay slur at him. The thought at the time was that someone who worked for the station meant to send it from a burner account but accidently sent it from the WWL account.

Well, some investigation later, and WWL has turned the case over to the police, claiming that Dunlap sent the tweet himself in order to extort the station.

WWL Radio claims Seth Dunlap sent homophobic tweet, then demanded $1.8M, NOPD report says | Crime/Police | nola.com

and Dunlap has already passed a polygraph saying he had nothing to do with it.

John Hollinger leaves the Grizzlies front office to go back to writing and joins the Athletic. I subscribed a month ago and I think it's easily been worth it.

The Athletic is awesome. They've started video content that is awesome too. The latest with Shaq is good shit.

I got a subscription to the Athletic at the start of the NHL playoffs last spring. Almost all I read is Jets articles and I still consider it 100% worth the price. Phenomenal content.

I love The Athletic. Easily my go-to site/app for sports info.

I also love the Athletic, but worry about it's business model. I hope subscription-based online content can work in both news and sports though.

They're OK I guess.

I love me some Down Goes Brown. That guy is prolific!

same same

I guess this is the right thread to post about the downfall of Deadspin.

httpx://drewmagary.kinja.com/this-is-how-it-s-gonna-work-1839505029

"Stick to Sports"

Having now looked up the basis for the kerfluffle, I tend to think "good riddance".

The number of times in my life I've wanted non-sports intruding on sports coverage I can count on one hand. (The World Series earthquake comes to mind, and I think maybe there was some sporting event on when Bin-Laden was killed ... aside from that, umm )

It's Deadspin. No one read it just "for sports". It was always read for what the writers found interesting, amusing around sports as well as sports related reporting.

Trying to make it into The Sporting News is just idiotic.

I've never once intentionally looked at it for anything that wasn't sports related*.

I'd be considerably happier if ESPN issued a similar edict and anyone who wanted to do something else would follow suit.

If writers want to be working at Vice or Vox or Mother Jones or whatever then by all means, I think they ought to go do that.


*(phrased that way because I can't absolutely swear at some point I haven't looked at something non-sports there via a tweet or fofc linkage or whatever)

I don't understand the economics of it. There are already a ton of places like Bleacher Report, but Deadspin was a little unique. Unless the people who left are lying about traffic and revenue, I just don't see how making it less unique will lead to greater profits.

They were. It was called Deadspin.

"Sports News Without Access, Favor, or Discretion"

That's their own site header.

If it says wrestling on the marquee, I expect wrestling.
If it says sports news on the marquee ...

And talking about how culture and politics insect with sports sounds EXACTLY like "Sports News Without Access, Favor, or Discretion".

Esp the without discretion part. You can be all "by the book" about sports if you don't have access or favor, but without discretion means something else.

No more articles about whether the Pope masturbates?

Their new CEO is a right wing snowflake is how I took all this news. It's a shame

All that horseshit has nothing to do with "sports".

It may have to do with the various nutjobs playing sports but, honestly, the games existed before the current crop of misguided, misbegotten oxygen thieves that overpopulate the coverage in many places today.

I'm not just "shut up and dribble", I'm decidedly more "please shut the FUCK up and dribble."

Deadspin was always sports and... That’s been their brand and readers went there because of it. Seems unlikely to me that they will be as successful as just another sports site indistinguishable from all the others.

Yeah stories about the people who play sports or what happens in the stands during games are stories about sports. Sorry, but it just is.

If you want stories about sports are platonic events without talking about the players lives, may I suggest historical documentaries about sporting events... But even those discuss what was going on to those players and the societies in which they lived.

Maybe you should just stop watching sports.

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Jon - the site wasn't for you. But that's ok, that's how the internet works - you don't like a site, don't go to it. Find something you do like instead. Plenty of people liked Deadspin, and liked that it covered topics (big sports, wrestling, boxing, cereal, celebrity, sex, music, brain trauma, parenting, whatever) that other outlets wouldn't touch. And they did so without being afraid to get feedback from -- and interact with -- their readers.


But yes, this. This is a case of someone buying something they didn't like, and rather than leaving well enough alone they insisted on changing what it was (or flat out killing it).

I loved Deadspin. I've been reading it for the better part of 10 years at least. I have a feeling that it's spiritual successor will show up somewhere else before too long. Kinja still has some quality blogs, but the demise of Deadspin leaves a substantial hole in the product.

Agreed.

Or maybe the uber-left agendas should be left out of sports by anything that pretends to be sports media. And that's 99%+ of the worthless drivel that's generated when sports coverage tries to get into anything else.

All I'm left with is an increased number of CEI's to wish for.

There's a twitter feed (@undeadspin) that is aggregating the feeds of everyone who left.

Stick to sporks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...bout-his-role/


I just started watching (not listening to) this show at the gym.

Well, Drew Magary showed up on Vice two days ago. Knew it wouldn't take long.


{edit: May not be a perm gig, he also shows up on a new site from Medium too.}

I wasn't sure if this should go in this thread or the college football thread.

CBS exits SEC football negotiations, ESPN/ABC likely to take over after 2023

Wow that's massive!

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From the Athletic:
Starting in December and ending on Opening Day, we at The Athletic will count down the 100 greatest baseball players by publishing an essay on a player every day for 100 days. In all, this project will contain roughly as many words as “Moby Dick.” Yes, we know it’s nutty. We hope you enjoy.

Starting reading them today. Pretty good stuff.

This series and the McGinn Files articles on NFL players scouting profiles before the draft have been among my favorites on The Athletic.

The Gammons article on Jeter and Larry Walker getting into the HoF is the first bad article I've read on The Athletic.

I love the Athletic as much as ever, but I wish they would stop trying to push video and podcasts on me. Makes me worried they will be the latest decent sports website to move to a medium I just don’t want my articles in.

How are they pushing that on you? I see the content off to the side, but I can still get to everything I want without any interference.

Keith Law writing for The Athletic now - that's a big get for them. That paired with their reporting on the Astros cheating scandal have made the site a must-have subscription.

Not sure how many listen to the Dan Lebatard show but I’m at the bar at the Clevelander where they broadcast from and just met Billy Gil. Really nice guy. Took a few minutes of his time to chat with me.