Death of Deadspin A Cautionary Tale For Rest Of Sports Media Industry | Bobby Burack
The latest incarnation of Deadspin is no more.
On Monday, parent company G/O Media sold the site to an obscure European firm called Lineup Publishing. New ownership subsequently fired the entire Deadspin staff.
Deadspin 4.0 (who's keeping count?) catered to the "cool kids," the most in-vogue group of internet users. Deadspin, through its various incarnations, has always catered to the "cool kids."
However, the current batch of "cool kids" are anything but cool. The right would call them liberals. That's technically true. But the group is more specific than just liberal.
The "cool kids" today are tense, bitter, and uneasy.
They are large in energy but minimal in size. They – shall we call them the "woke"? – are a dimple in the pie chart of overall sports fans.
Catering to the vocal minority is rarely wise.
And that, above all else, is why Zombie Deadspin failed. And why the death of Zombie Deadspin ought to be a cautionary tale to the rest of the sports media.
Deadspin was a caricature of what rots within the fiber of the industry. Yet the site, while inferior in quality, emphasized the direction of the industry by stoking animus and hysteria, penning conclusions in contrast with the facts, and amplifying the most off-putting of tones.
Deadspin was closer to the norm than the exception.
The site wasn't all that different from the sports section of USA Today, the talk shows on ESPN, the sports coverage from the LA Times, or the podcasts found throughout the industry.
Perhaps Carron J. Phillips is more reckless than the other supposed journalists who cover the intersection of race and sports. But the catalyst for his lawsuit-inciting hit piece on a nine-year-old Chiefs fan, whom he falsely accused of wearing blackface, was hardly unique from how the press covers "scandals" in sports today.
Phillips and Deadspin leaped at a story before knowing the facts, such as the kid they said was wearing blackface was not wearing blackface. They quickly smeared the subject as a means to prove to the audience that anti-black racism still permeates society.
The sports media at large applied the same strategy to the Duke-BYU "N-word" hoax, Bubba Wallace's garage hoax, the "Dinger" incident, and so, so many others.
Unfortunately, one can find Phillips-types across the industry – most of whom are far more successful and influential than he was.
He's no different from Mike Freeman of USA Today, Howard Bryant of ESPN, Bomani Jones of Wave, Jemele Hill of The Atlantic, Dan Le Batard of Meadowlark Media, or Maria Taylor of NBC Sports.
The entire group preys on society's irrational fear of racial backlash, and thus utilizes unfounded accusations to advance their own careers.
As I told Dan Dakich on Tuesday, when your job is to complain about racism, and there's no real racism to complain about, you are forced to manufacture and lie about racism.
The plague is industry-wide.
This week, USA Today posted an article lamenting that a white girl, Caitlin Clark, is the biggest star in women's college basketball. Damn her.
The outlet claimed black women invented the sport, in which it's theirs to star. The article reads as if it were syndicated from Deadspin.
The Deadspin-ization of sports media is real. It's shameful. The audience detests it.
There's no real market for said type of coverage. Not a single one of the smear merchants mentioned ever drew a substantial audience.
Executives might reward them, Black Twitter might retweet them, and they might share content from one another – but the fans, the customers who matter, reject them.
Sports are supposed to be an escape; not a place for soap boxes via retired jocks and journalists not quite smart enough to cover serious topics.
The over-indexing of "woke sports" is a diversion from reality, from the fun and entertainment that is sports in America.
Not coincidentally, Dave Portnoy and Pat McAfee are experiencing general success for simply making sports talk fun again.
You could have imagined?
Former Deadspin editor and spoiled slob Julie DiCaro perpetually telling readers she is a victim of a male-dominated industry was not fun. For the same reason, Sarah Spain, Katie Nolan, and Cari Champion failed as television talents.
Self-absorption, self-pity, and self-righteousness do not appeal to fans.
Quite simply: if you look down on sports fans, despise them, and cringe when at their enjoyment — a job covering sports is probably not for you.
So, do not feel shame for enjoying the demise of Zombie Deadspin and the careers of Carron J. Phillips and Julie DiCaro.
They deserve it. They built an operation around shaming you for being a fan, for being happy, and for not sitting at the table with the "cool kids."
Don't feel bad for rooting against the rest of the industry for producing the same condescending, low-demand coverage of sports that just buried Deadspin.