How Deadspin Changed Sports Journalism

July 22, 2022 2:31 AM

Deadspin blew up the tropes and traditions of old-school sports media, changing the industry by challenging the accepted narrative and aggressively pursuing stories that gave readers a peek behind the curtain at the sports elite.
posted by I shot a fox in Skyrim and it made me sad (13 comments total)

I say this every time a Defector article is linked here: Subscribe. It's worth it. I barely pay attention to the sports articles but still find something interesting to read every day.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 4:50 AM on July 22, 2022 [9 favorites]

One of the greater What-ifs of lesser events that pops into my mind every once in a while is, what if they’d never given Daulerio the position they did? What if, say, Craggs had been the person given the final say in green lighting a stupid story about a has-been wrestler, and he said, nah, fuck that, let’s do something useful?

Gawker was profitable at the time. They weren’t angels, and there was a lot of shit that happened that shouldn’t have. But, man, there’s a direct line from deciding to run a sex tape of Terry-fucking-Bolea that runs all the way through the death of Splinter, io9, and the mockery of former heights that are the current shells of Kotaku, Jezebel, The Root, Deadspin, and the AV Club.

I mean, I’m happy to have Defector. I was also happy having all those voices under one roof, bouncing off of each other, pushing each other further.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:04 AM on July 22, 2022 [10 favorites]

What if, say, Craggs had been the person given the final say in green lighting a stupid story about a has-been wrestler, and he said, nah, fuck that, let’s do something useful?

Eh, I think there's a strong argument to be made that Peter Thiel would have found some other way to destroy them.
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:43 AM on July 22, 2022 [7 favorites]

Loved this article. I lived on Deadspin and reading comments in the 2000s and 2010s.
posted by sandmanwv at 7:58 AM on July 22, 2022

Eh, I think there's a strong argument to be made that Peter Thiel would have found some other way to destroy them.

Maybe; he probably would have tried, at least once. But the best way to destroy your enemies (or so they say down at the Supervillains' Club) is to give them enough rope, and as much as Gawker (the real one) gets lauded and mourned post-mortem, no one likes Nick Denton as much as they hate Thiel. The Gawker empire may not have lasted forever, but they didn't need to go that way.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:31 AM on July 22, 2022

is to give them enough rope, and as much as Gawker (the real one) gets lauded and mourned post-mortem

If AJ Daulerio had been a human being instead of himself during the trial, then maybe Gawker would still be around. Talking about hanging a person with their own rope.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:20 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

Also I never thought Deadspin 'changed' sports journalism. What it did right is it was funny to read during a boring workday, with regular, well-written posts and an active comments section to riff on the articles. A lot of the posts were regular comedy skits, and the original manager/writer Will Leitch was a fan of some offbase teams, and an excellent sort of sad-sack protagonist worthy of rooting for.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:34 AM on July 22, 2022

I do think Deadspin did a lot to change things, at least in terms of moving sports coverage away from access journalism. Yes, you still have people like Shams or Woj whose whole schtick is the connections they have, but I think there are a lot more stories coming out because there are a lot more reporters and writers a lot less willing to suppress stories to maintain privileged relationships.

I’d always be willing to argue that Page 2 did a hell of a lot to change things, even if it gave us Bill Simmons in his current incarnation.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:03 PM on July 22, 2022 [4 favorites]

was just as banal and stupid and pedantic as your paper company in Omaha, Nebraska,

Hey cool nice jab at the midwest when it consistently has some of the best sports journalism in the nation. The KC Star alone seems to make up a large amount of ESPN and other commentators, well at least it did before it was gutted like every other paper in the country.

I like sports and sports journalism and Deadspin is definitely good but this feels really like it is ignoring every publication that isn't you know not named NYT or Washington Post. Yeah they don't don't do sports well. To do a piece on sports journalism and not name people who came before you who did pretty much the same thing, ugh I hate to say it, Jason Whitlock for example, is kinda lazy. But there's also Sam Mellinger, Adam Teicher and the list goes on.

But yes Gen Z edgy sports writing wasn't born on the internet but in boring midwestern newspapers people like to talk about after someone wrote that Joe Montana wasn't the best quarterback ever because he didn't win the Chiefs a Super Bowl. Yes, I will cling to my 90s Starters jacket like it was blessed by the pope.
posted by geoff. at 6:08 PM on July 22, 2022

Old Deadspin was amazing. Current Deadspin is existing but who cares. Defector is OK-ish but not as good as old Deadspin (plus it costs much more than I, as a fan of snark but not sport, am willing to pay). I acknowledge Defector's success, but they lose a big part of their audience. And Peter Thiel is a huge dirt bag, not that it's relevant. And whosit is an herb. So yeah.
posted by jwest at 9:25 PM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

I always looked forward to the annual Why your team sucks article.
posted by oldnumberseven at 8:57 PM on July 24, 2022

I always looked forward to the annual Why your team sucks article.

Magary is still doing that at Defector, and just put out the call for submissions for this season.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:42 PM on July 24, 2022

I say this every time a Defector article is linked here: Subscribe. It's worth it. I barely pay attention to the sports articles but still find something interesting to read every day.

Agreed, with the caveat that it's outside of some people's price range.

I'll gift a year subscription to the first that memail's me.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 8:59 PM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]