sports and/or sport writing

it is essentially terrible. let's not even get into bleacher report.

i think grantland is actually really good, but can we agree that bill simmons is a shitty person? can we make that happen?

it's fucking hard coming up with an interesting take on the sports world again and again for weeks and years on end. inevitably, there is rank trolling and inexplicable terribleness.

(living in dc years ago i was able to witness michael wilbon's devolution into 'guy who mentions jordan no matter the context.' you should have seen his annual hockey columns.)

but that's no excuse for some shit.

rick fucking reilly stands athwart history yelling stop: [Removed Illegal Link].

the last two paragraphs, in particular, are priceless

oops http://es.pn/154hm4x

nfl writer notices that a head coach's brother died, writes this (courtesy j0rd):

When I noticed earlier today that the younger brother of Giants coach Tom Coughlin recently had died, I added the item to the list of stories to get posted at some point in the near future.

When I noticed tonight the circumstances, the story shot to the top of the stack.

i don't think bill simmons is actually a bad person. i think he is an ok person who i often disagree with.

i don't think bill simmons, maybe, is on purpose a bad person. and i don't care about the nba or boston, so i may be biased. but i found this pretty damning.

yeah i get that but i thought his take on girls and his podcast w/lena dunham were smart and perceptive and sympathetic. basically he's smarter, in an unschooled way, than the character he's occasionally portrayed himself as.

but to the thread's point, he's been a mostly good nba writer, a mostly bad everything else writer, and isn't one of the top 20 problems with sportswriting

i appreciate that he may have evolved, and like i said, i think grantland is largely very good.

and i totally appreciate the fact that he, more than really any other single person (weirdly), is responsible for the shift from 'beholden beat writers quoting truisms' to a view that a fan can actually relate to.

i also appreciate that he would never, for any number of valid reasons, have written rick reilly's column.

anyway, 'let us discuss the top 20 problems with sportswriting' is what i should have said in the op

the main problem with sportswriting is that most sportswriters aren't very bright.

or are they so bright they just blew your mind?

surely trolling/generating 'controversy' is a huge part of it

they're horrible at trolling though!

or i mean maybe they're ok at trolling the general population but who would want to be known for that

skip bayless?

espn? How ESPN Pulled A Bullshit Colin Kaepernick Story Out Of Thin Air

that espn thing was pretty fucked up.

skip is barely worth a comment.

top story on espn all day: Silent Mode: Lynch snubs SB reporters

this is basically the slowest week in sports iirc

It's awful. Close second: sports radio. I listened to sports radio during my 4 hour commute home today. I can't even believe how bad it is. Topic # 1 was Marshawn lynch at press say. Who gives a fuck?

Press day

LeBron on Cabrera deal: 'Wow'

this is a good read:
http://deadspin.com/the-top-200-ways-bleacher-report-screwed-me-over-1608499729

not to defend bleacher report, but that guy was a sucker

Agreed in both counts. Good article but the dude got taken to the cleaners.

Has anyone had a mightier fall than King Kaufman?

https://i.imgur.com/bcnyERE.jpg

I hope to god that was a joke.

nope, merely a hot take

stephen a. smith covering himself in glory today

nope, merely a hot take

― mookieproof, Wednesday, July 23, 2014 10:33 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That take was so hot im fucking sunburned. Piping hot.

stephen a. smith covering himself in glory today

― mookieproof, Friday, July 25, 2014 2:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Beadle absolutely nuked him on Twitter. http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/michelle-beadle-calls-out-first-take-for-ray-rice-segment.html

There is precedence in ESPN history for a suspension...........of Beadle. If i remember correctly, Simmons got put on the shelf for calling the Stephen A./Bayless show a piece of shit.

If that happens, i will never watch ESPN again.

I should say i only watch ESPN now when a sporting event is on. Nothing else, except maybe 30 for 30.

Funny, the last time I checked, you can't spell Jameis without "me" and "I."

espn suspended keith law from twitter because he defended evolution from curt schilling

i mean

lol

Well done, ESPN.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7-9Q3bIMAAVRgv.png

sheman otm

SHERMAN

http://deadspin.com/how-jason-whitlock-is-poisoning-espns-black-grantland-1698683962

wau

dang

i feel like the inevitable revival of deflategate takes is gonna provide some quality mockery/hateread material for this thread

havent seen anything yet but it's gotta only be a matter of time. simmdog has to be typing fuckin furiously about this

http://deadspin.com/the-ballghazi-takes-are-back-and-they-are-more-insane-1702819519

i'm dying at this one:

During the investigation and answering questions from the media, Brady denied tampering with footballs or having any knowledge of those who did. However, he declined to make his text messages and emails available to NFL investigators.

Why, Tom?

Why?

You know why.

I know why.

The NFL knows why.

Because Brady cheated, that’s why.

Just like A-Rod.

Just like Barry Bonds.

Just like Lance Armstrong.

Another one of our nation’s most beloved sports heroes – a true Patriot – has flushed his integrity down the toilet.

Bye, bye, Mr. American Pie.

the "Why, Tom?" part is the killer

Tom "AP" Brady

http://i.imgur.com/ey3cI9g.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEbc2npVAAA5kY4.jpg:medium

ugh slothrop, I shoulda recognized the Bye Bye Mr. American Pie one. that's our local columnist Mike Bianchi, who has been an embarrassment for as long as I can remember because he's held the post since I was a child.

I used to write him emails frequently to complain about his most recent horrible analogy, his penchant for hyperbole, or his reactionary writing style (as evidenced with the example above). He's famous mostly for hopping on whatever bandwagon issue crops up and taking a personal stand that often greatly exceeds the scope of whatever the transgression was to begin with.

fucking hate that guy.

the column he wrote the day after Earnhardt died was insufferable. He even had a special modified avatar of his face added to the column, which was usually adorned with his cheesy smiling face....only this time he used a deliberately concocted "sad" face instead. one that wouldn't have been believed in children's theatre, mind you.

i think Jemele Hill is the only person from our local paper who went on to have a solid career.

yeah that whole thing makes shaughnessy seem restrained. this dude seems like a demon of cheesy shitty banality

the other local sportswriter used to call him an idiot on their televised appearances all the time. Bianchi's only retort was usually "you're fat"

Sports writing is and always will be terrible, because sports contests are extremely rule-bound and essentially near duplicates of one another in everything but the outcome of each contest. All the possible stories have been written hundreds of thousands of times. Consequently, sports writers are stuck in horrible dead end jobs they often become wretched unhappy people.

so for sportswriting to get better, out with the rules?

Or, someone could write and AI program to replace sports writers.

already done
http://automatedinsights.com/sports/

lol yeah Yahoo uses it for Fantasy football

it would occasionally do things like attribute wins to the wrong team or call teams by the wrong name tho

that bye bye american pie abortion of a paragraph is like aspiring to be plaschke and it makes me die a little inside

that's a masterwork compared to some of of the shit he writes about sports he barely knows

aimless clearly has what it takes to be a (sports or non-) pundit

I prefer to be a pandit. Worse pay, but a better job title.

http://www.bidoun.org/images/20_nath_02.jpg

http://deadspin.com/why-espn-fired-bill-simmons-1703103609

h8 when ppl attribute me to the wrong team tbh

envisioning the part of the writing game where people get millions of dollars during salary negotiations is difficult for me

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CE0Vhj5UgAAPjI3.jpg

envisioning the part of the writing game where people get millions of dollars during salary negotiations is difficult for me

― deej loaf (D-40), Monday, May 11, 2015 12:22 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you could move to los angeles where all our sports writers do is troll local teams and write one sentence paragraph overly sentimental pieces and win pulitzers

tbf the current lakers are pretty easy to troll

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/sports/soccer/english-soccer-club-sets-up-tight-defense-but-this-one-repels-journalists.html?_r=0&referrer=

Swindon Town, a third-division club that typically plays in front of crowds of fewer than 10,000, has taken some of the most extreme measures yet: In effect, the team has eliminated non-game-day news media access. Reporters, photographers and videographers are largely barred from interviewing any member of the team, the coaching staff or the club’s management, save for a hurried question or two for the manager at a postmatch news conference.

@WhitlockJason
Tell Greg Howard that Craggs and Marchman ghostwriting his stuff and rewriting Ta Coates talking points won't save his ass #daddyshome

smdh

http://j.school/post/131134873540/the-explanation-20-still-undefeated

rip grantland

that sucks. love zach lowe, esp his podcasts, and some of their soccer stuff was p good, and a couple of outstanding tennis features as well iirc

http://jeffbradleyblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-little-ditty-about-out-of-work.html

Interesting take on being out of work/underemployed. Guy is the brother of former USA National team coach Bob Bradley.

I would tell you that - not gonna be humble here - my writing was really good. I will also tell you that my other skills - live tweeting, posting random photos of things in the stadium, in the press box - were really bad.

it's a new world

in which michael wilbon and tony kornheiser hold forth on sportswriting

http://povichcenter.org/povichsymposium10

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3073/2767638386_d8efc6fb1f.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CadY6_DVIAAjzme.jpg:large

bomani jones was tweeting out excerpts of her cam piece all morning, truly vomitous bullshit

impressive that espn has found room, amidst their coverage of how the 2011 nfl draft *should* have gone, to cover pro wrestling with a straight face

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuvR8NmXgAAq0u_.jpg:small

@darrenrovell
Fastest way to a job today is to provide a team, a player, an agency, great work unsolicited and for free. Great way to be noticed.

bloodbath at espn

ed werder looks like biggest name so far

pretty much everyone who covered hockey is gone, which i guess shouldn't be a surprise

hockey writing can safely be left as a Canadian monopoly

lots of quality reporters gone, lots of terrible on-air blowhards get to stay

Jayson Stark
For 17 yrs I've had a dream job covering baseball for ESPN. Today is my last day. Thanks to all the great people at ESPN, MLB & all of you!

damn, i always enjoyed his presence as the esoteric stat nerd

oh no, i liked him a lot. mr positive vibes dork trivia head.

espn doubling down on the hot take culture huh?

wow Ethan Strauss gone!

aww fuck they got ethan

he was the only guy whose gamers i actually read because i enjoyed the writing. and he was amazing on the truehoop pod.

yup

spending billions of dollars on broadcast rights then laying off reporters who make a combined tiny fraction of that when yr subscriptions decline will surely solve the problem... not

man this is brutal. strauss was a quality reporter. stark was reaaaaaallly longwinded but i liked him too

hoping buster olney and kevin arnovitz are safe

"was" should be "is" obv, they're not dead and they'll find work easily

actually they were ritually killed

strauss being let go seems really bizarre given the warriors popularity, right?

they got justin verrier from the truehoop crew as well. quality reporter on the pels.

Don't think most of these talented folk will be out of work for too long, tbh.

Bucci Mane is out too, only cawlidge hawkey voice rip :(

espn is one of the big employers if these jobs go away forever the pool is smaller, some will be lost to easy better playing pr jobs

Or wait, that might be fake news🤔 xp

they must expect getting savaged by their carriage fee negotiations.. kinda like how fox 86'd o'reilly. $5 per subscriber RIP.

http://deadspin.com/a-running-list-of-espn-layoffs-1794664091

i'm pretty stunned that they let ethan go, he had ascended really highly in the company and w/ the warriors... so weird. but maybe he was making too much money.

on the one hand, ESPN was definitely carrying... a lot of people. like college football recruiting analysts assigned to one single conference etc. some of those guys, also the beat writers, should be able to find more locally-based work, tho prob for less money. but the biggest names like jayson stark or whatever... there's not that many places out there that will pay what he's accustomed to making after 17 years at a place like ESPN. like, yahoo, fox, mlb.com.... it's not a large pool. kinda scary that really nobody is safe.

https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/857314772777279488

i have no sense of media salaries, can anyone take a stab at how much ethan might have been making?

my range is pretty wide but i would definitely say 6 figures without a doubt

losers like amin elhassan are always bragging about how much money they make, you have to hope people with some actual talent like ethan are getting paid

yeah i would be very surprised if he wasn't making six figures

that a lot plus all the traveling

i these things aren't planned/done this way but it is a bizarre look to let key beat writers go when the teams they cover are making deep playoff runs. calvin watkins who covers the rockets was let go too.

stopped reading Stark ages ago, only guy i read on espn.com recently was the Mets guy who left last winter, Adam Rubin.

on the bright side, @ least trent dilfer go t fired

also len elmore

the only bitter response i saw was . . . danny kanell!

@dannykanell
Poured my heart and soul into ESPN for last 8 years. Moved my wife and 3 kids to CT to go "all in" 5 years ago. Bummed it ended in 3 minutes

andy katz seems like a big one

yeah that one is crazy

they axed my guy dr. jerry punch too. my childhood crumbling in front of my eyes.

this all has resulted in (so far) a two-day moratorium on the truehoop podcast which is not fucking cool, that's what i listen to when i shoot hoops or drive places.

yo, henry abbott got canned too

or at least thats how it appears?

just came to post that, disgraceful

sad

explains the end of the pod. this is traumatic.

also marc stein

wow again

really don't get the timing of why this all had to be now -- why not wait six weeks to lay off the nba guys? it's like if they'd fired mel kiper jr. on monday

the share holders arent concerend with that.

STEIN??? he's like the one of the three or four most connected nba reporters.

this is crazy

yeah thats maybe the biggest one yet for me. kev did ya boy amin make it out? he and haberstroh have been silent on the tweets.

if they can guys like stein, what exactly are they the worldwide leaders in?

insane

lotta talent out there if someone wanted to put an nba reporting network together

woj gotta bring it all together and have yahoo take over.

guess it's going to wind up with everyone directly working for the leagues they're covering

wowwwww marc stein, thats booty

if they can guys like stein, what exactly are they the worldwide leaders in?

― passionate plant-based athlete (voodoo chili), Friday, April 28, 2017 10:44 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

assholes yelling at each other? the same day they axed almost all of their baseball guys they announced they picking up 'intentional talk' from the mlb network which is basically kevin millar and some other idiot yelling GOT HEEEEEM

Looks like chad ford is out too

also david thorpe i think

jeeeeeeez

wooow

i'm a little shellshocked by all this tbh

damn, i loved thorpe

i only saw one passing reference so hopefully he's ok. very interesting guy even if i didn't always agree with him.

he's a long talker and a hilarious name dropper but i always enjoy his perspective

Pretty much all these guys had good things to offer

ESPN hired Woj!

And the conspiracy theories are flying:

http://deadspin.com/adrian-wojnarowski-finally-won-his-war-against-espn-1794817931

Wow thats pretty wild if even 50% true

It is important to note that the ESPN layoffs were not buyouts. ESPN did not give laid-off employees severance or any other type of lump-sum payment. Instead, ESPN will continue to pay them for the length of their contracts. They just won’t be able to report or otherwise do their jobs. If Marc Stein—or any other laid-off ESPNer—wants another, likely less well-paying, job, they will still have to go back to ESPN and negotiate an exit.

iiiiinteresting

drag em out as long as possible in hopes they swoop up another job and have to negotiate a buyout for less.

if i understand that correctly, it puts ESPN in the win-win situation of either avoiding paying the full value of their contracts or gutting the competition for NBA coverage

man i just have a really hard time believing woj would can ethan over something he wrote 7 years ago on a blog.

NBA reporters are as petty as NBA players maybe. and yeah xp thats it.

Truehoop pod reinstated
http://mashable.com/2017/05/04/espn-truehoop-podcast-return-new-name/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#0igQs.DHBiqL

https://sportstvratings.com/on-sc6-and-giving-jamie-horowitz-due-credit/8058/

kind of a disorganized piece here but makes some interesting points

not sure where to post this but Bomani and Torre are getting their own show:

http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2017/05/bomani-jones-pablo-torre-host-new-show-espn/#.WRr0hkptsuE.twitter

will watch, bo is the man

we can probs just use this for all sports media related stuff

oh I am down for a bomani and Pablo show for sure

is this the thread where we call out jon bois for what he is, the best sports video dude in the history of the internet

the barry bonds one recently was my first introduction to the dude.

watch all of them. the 'pretty good' series is jawdroppingly brilliant stuff

watching the baron davis 90 foot shot one right now. fun.

my favourite is probably either the 222-0 one, the 1904 marathon or the poker one fyi but they're really all amazing

bomani and torre should be fun tho it is unlikely i will ever actually see that show

yeah hard to watch daytime sports espesh w/o a DVR. I record the Jump daily and maybe watch it a couple times a week.

daytime sports *shows

i would now rather hear/see/read about tim tebow than lavar ball

jon bois' breaking madden and nba y2k columns have made people look at me weird at work for laughing too much

https://www.si.com/tech-media/2017/05/22/mike-greenberg-mike-golic-relationship-espn-radio

apparently these guys hate each other

hard to decide which is more useless. no wait, it's Greenberg. Golic is just a run-of-the-mill idiot, Greenberg is a true dipshit weenie. the Joe Buck of his generation (actually, that's an insult to Buck).

pretty much every sports fan i know still listens to sports radio, which is just really sad when there are all these podcasts out there where you might actually learn something or be genuinely entertained. even Simmons, who is hardly the brightest bulb, is 1000x better than any ESPN radio clown or the vast majority of local schmucks.

pretty much agree with all of that

they're just so boring.

this fucking show has been on for 18 years??????????????

it's so easy to ignore

nice that lebetard and bomani are getting more shine over there. it's just a hard format to be great at, so much air time, so much fluff. agree that podcasts >>>>>

https://theringer.com/espn-critics-decline-sports-media-242e1f99129

john clayton out at espn

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--T0b3Cw8X--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/195bpbypvp9izjpg.jpg

Fox Sports national president Jamie Horowitz fired amid sexual harassment probe https://t.co/dWGw2wNur8

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 3, 2017

Jon Bois has just unveiled his Sistine Chapel I think

https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football/chapter-1

"is steely dan still together" A+

Ok I'll give this some proper time tonight, looks pretty amazing.

holy shit!

http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/baseball-isnt-exactly-taxing-so-why-do-cubs-players-need-rest/amp/

17776 continues to be the best thing in the world

today's episode was above all things

enjoying the direction this has gone

Today's update is kinda brutal. Amazing though.

i would just like to say this sports sci fi is not addressing climate change at all and it takes me right out of it

But NYC and Florida are gone!

https://t.co/zOZKNLUI5D has gone all video. That is why I no longer can write on our site.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 12, 2017

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEopZFDXUAE7dhO.jpg

LMAO

amazing

i would just like to say this sports sci fi is not addressing climate change at all and it takes me right out of it

― nice cage (m bison), Monday, July 10, 2017 9:41 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

happy now? :)

mostly, though the handwavyness of at the end felt like a copout

like, "p much everything turned out fine and lots of marginalized people were fine but man we lost nyc rip never forget", also the way things are portrayed it feel like every part of the US is desolate but theres still gotta be like 350 mil ppl in the us at that point? wild.

i rlly enjoyed it, i dont care if shit doesnt make sense its speculative fiction not hard sci-fi

i demand realistic portrayals of the earth's climate in a universe where people dont die

rip vice sports

jesus christ whitlock

Greg Howard obsessed w/white women, pretends to be black militant https://t.co/QulJpMqDsD All too common w/SJWs.

— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) July 22, 2017

http://deadspin.com/how-sb-nation-profits-off-an-army-of-exploited-workers-1797653841

one of my many low points this year was the managing editor of the cardinals SB blog asking for volunteers for people to write post-game wrap-ups and getting turned down even though like 53 other people were ok'd

uhhhhh

Great to have Kap stop by the studio today. pic.twitter.com/2UPuyCdWdK

— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) September 6, 2017

fuck jason whitlock

christ, what an asshole

#BREAKING: White House demands ESPN fire host who called Trump a "white supremacist" https://t.co/jz8OpGlzBK pic.twitter.com/Y0n9rXDnOz

— The Hill (@thehill) September 13, 2017

i'm sure the white house contains some very fine people

on both sides of course

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJtwrVhXUAEDVOI.jpg

great, now i have to like jemele hill

the worldwide leader, forever chasing the coveted ignoramus demographic

great, now i have to like jemele hill

― k3vin k., Thursday, September 14, 2017 2:38 PM (forty-one seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeaaaah. SC6 is not good.

awfully woke move by espn not to use replacement whites

http://awfulannouncing.com/online-outlets/incline-freelancer-dave-lozo-criticized-jim-brady.html

kind of lol but mostly sad

And true to expectation, that has shown up in the first substantially reported numbers about the traffic to FoxSports.com. SI’s Richard Deitsch reports that traffic dropped an astounding 88% since the “pivot to video.” Their traffic has gone from over 143 million in a monthly period to just under 17 million.

http://awfulannouncing.com/fox/foxsports-com-reportedly-lost-88-audience-pivoting-video.html

wow/good

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLZAmiMW4AUnrdc.jpg:small

.@jemelehill has been suspended by ESPN for two weeks for a second violation of their social media policy.

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) October 9, 2017

related to her Jerry Jones tweets i'm thinking?

I don’t want to post it but Whitlock wrote prob the most tone-deaf tweet possible in a couple of ways not long ago and I hope he gets fired by whoever’s employing now just for sheer wackness

I want to know that man's secret to staying relevant because it sure as shit isn't related to merit

I don’t want to post it but Whitlock wrote prob the most tone-deaf tweet possible in a couple of ways not long ago and I hope he gets fired by whoever’s employing now just for sheer wackness

― Clay, Monday, October 16, 2017 7:56 PM (twenty-five minutes ago)

you're not gonna believe it but...it's fox

^^^

all takes matter.. except in the case of garnering ratings for your garbage sports network, when they actually don't.

By the time you finish reading this article, the upstart sports news outlet called The Athletic probably will have hired another well known sportswriter from your local newspaper. In a couple of years, once The Athletic has completed its breakneck expansion, perhaps that newspaper’s sports section will no longer exist.

“We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing,” Alex Mather, a co-founder of The Athletic, said in an interview in San Francisco. “We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment. We will make business extremely difficult for them.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/sports/the-athletic-newspapers.html

i miss grantland too

i actually subscribed to this -- the hockey coverage is v. good, plus rosenthal/gammons/etc -- and now i regret it

ive been mulling over getting a subscription for their nba and 49ers coverage but ...

They already poached my favorite Chicago soccer writer.

Tom Humphries, who in his time was a great sports writer around Gaelic games in particular but also covered Olympics, football and golf in his colour columns and several collections, jailed today for grooming and abuse of a minor

suuuuure

I'm truly sorry for the tone of my comments in the New York Times today. I learned a lesson in humility that will help me grow as a leader. pic.twitter.com/YwyJnIxiPF

— Alex Mather (@alex3780) October 23, 2017

this fucking guy

https://deadspin.com/pittsburghs-cutting-edge-sports-site-is-a-meat-grinder-1821797940

ESPN dot com generally pisses me off with their focus on NFL (even during the offseason) and NBA at the expense of baseball (and hockey, but whatever)

but loool at it being the first night of the NBA finals and their lead story is the fuckin spelling bee

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DkGore1VsAEzTnM.jpg:small

this guy

dick, really

unfortunately i have /nothing/ to do at work today and possibly the next few days, and i was kind of annoyed until i remembered i never finished reading tim tebow's cfl chronicles or 17776... my day has since become so much better

(i'm only 2 chapters into TT CFL so far)

rip sports illustrated

it was getting to be pretty worthless lately so it's more of a mercy killing. if they'd done more solid investigative stuff they might have merited more regrets at their death. instead, whenever I'd see a copy in my dentist's office and pick it up it was a design nightmare with practically no content at all.

i haven't subscribed since i was a kid (i'm part of the problem), but they still had some good writers online at least

jon bois's end-of-decade retrospective is good

https://www.sbnation.com/2019/12/30/21035159/the-10-least-consequential-athletes-of-the-decade

ty

On Wednesday morning, the Ringer Union and the Writers Guild of America East learned that Spotify has purchased ​The Ringer. pic.twitter.com/dvNvpKnPMa

— Ringer Union (@RingerUnion) February 5, 2020

Oh great

Grant Wahl fired by Sports Illustrated

that 'internal memo' was really something

athletic laying of 8% of staff

oh man

i imagine the lack of shit to talk about has hit their bottom line p hard

17776 sequel y'all

https://www.sbnation.com/secret-base/21410129/20020/chapter-1

how is this even better than 17776

Here's the proper landing page

https://www.sbnation.com/secret-base/21410129/20020

Anyway, 7/12 in and this is basically the literary event of 2020

i keep putting it off because i don't feel ready but i will never be ready and should just start tonight

It's done. Unbelievably great

ESPN has announced that Dan Le Batard is leaving the company in January.

— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) December 3, 2020

i stg if he has a fuckin substack...

Simmons was on the show today so I'm putting 10 bucks on the ringah

maybe he's going to start his own wildly unsuccessful series of political punditry videos on youtube a la keith olbermann

such an asshole that i'm forced to side with the jets

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/12/11/manish-mehta-jets-daily-news

huh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsmQzkHXUAET4qD?format=png&name=small

okay lol at your framing of that clip

thank you for your service

One other layer...for future journalists...your first few years feel unpaid. I made 16.5k my first two years and worked harder than I’ve ever worked. There is a reason not everyone makes it in this business. I don’t have time for those of you who don’t understand grind ✌🏼 https://t.co/c4iWwPQ1bs

— Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) March 1, 2021

journalists are the real troops

the thin cmyk line

happily her rich grandfather supported her as she built an important career breaking american football news #grind

This article on Team Hawaii from the 1970's era NASL is something else. Requires subscription, but I could probably be convinced to copy/paste it into a post…

https://theathletic.com/2488753

just so i have recorded this fact somewhere--the other day, the truehoop guy, who is still bitter that he no longer runs espn's nba coverage, tried to do some gotcha journalism on phoenix suns owner robert sarver by posting a video of sarver making some very off-color jokes at the memorial service of a deceased friend/business partner. hours later, that guy's widow contacted truehoop guy to let him know that it was intended to be a roast and that she thought it was hilarious.

lol at how hard espn dot com is pushing la liga right now

what percentage of its readership can name more than two teams or players

last couple years they've been doing that with serie A

It’s always wild when you think an artist has long since passed the peak of their career, and then they drop one of their biggest hits ever out of nowhere pic.twitter.com/lpfYhBRkDH

— actioncookbook (@actioncookbook) January 17, 2022

how do they keep doing it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alcVZZuj_WE

Presenting The 2022 Shams Charania Award For Excellence In Divulging Of Information Through Syntax Comprehended By Many

gold

I laughed so hard watching that video

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/movies/jon-bois-sb-nation-sports.html

xxxps ChatGPT may be approaching the Turing test but can it pass the Shams test?

As the poultry in question traversed the asphalt thoroughfare, one could not help but wonder at the avian's motivations for such a daring feat, according to sources close to the situation. Despite the inherent danger posed by the vehicular traffic hurtling past at high speeds, the chicken seemed undeterred, its determined gait and resolute demeanor a testament to its unwavering focus, league sources say.

As the chicken drew closer to the other side of the road, it became apparent that its destination was a grassy median, where it could perhaps peck at worms or bask in the sun's warm rays, according to an unnamed source. But alas, the journey was not to be an easy one, as the chicken was forced to navigate around various obstacles, including bits of debris, puddles of water, and even the occasional wayward leaf, as reported by multiple eyewitnesses.

Despite these challenges, the chicken remained undaunted, its resolve unwavering as it continued to make its way across the road, as confirmed by multiple sources close to the chicken. And eventually, after what must have seemed an eternity to the plucky fowl, it reached the safety of the median, where it could rest and enjoy the fruits of its labor, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

So there you have it, a needlessly complex description of a chicken crossing the road, in the confusingly verbose and grammatically spotty style of Shams Charania, as reported by various sources.

did the ryder cup even happen if Stephen A. Smith failed to weigh in on it?

presumably too busy shitting on dak for only winning 38-3 on the road

shams was robbed imo

https://defector.com/presenting-the-2023-shamsy

these pull quotes are amazing

https://defector.com/pro-commanders-spin-somehow-a-bigger-mess-than-commanders

“competence, vision and sanity”

The magnifying glass on her is enormous, but the actual performances examined through the prism of reality have been the overall positive mixed bag almost any top rookie has early on in a pro sports career.

-- ESPN's Michael Voepel on Caitlin Clark

strong early contender for a shams

wow lol

just sitting around thinking about refraction

I came out of that sentence a changed person, but I can't exactly say how

can't argue with this result, but that ben standig/dianna russini article remains truly incredible

https://defector.com/presenting-the-2024-shamsy

who amongst us has not recently experienced fluid

unpaywalled: https://archive.is/1lmYu

Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown has decided to change up his look.

Brown took to social media to share photos of his most recent haircut, which saw a significant amount of change to his hair.

we have of course seen far worse butchering of the English language, but god I love the second half of that latter sentence

the haircut itself? not particularly significant. the change to his hair? nah. the AMOUNT of change to his hair, though, that's breaking news. we are into calculus here. i want to know how fast this haircut was: was the rate of change, or the rate of the changing amount of change, also significant?

so much (power) ranking

why are actual records/standings/seeds not enough

the top of the athletic right now is five separate stories on the tush push, including how this affects jalen hurts’ fantasy/gambling value