Eli was naked and afraid. | | | | Justin Turner meets the press.
(Harry How/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Eli was naked and afraid.”
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| | rantnrave:// Since launching in January 2016, the subscription-based sports website THE ATHLETIC has been poaching reporters and setting up local sites across the US and CANADA. Co-founders ALEX MATHER and ADAM HANDSMANN want to "bleed" local newspapers and "suck them dry of their best talent," they tell the NEW YORK TIMES, which is not the best way to endear yourself to journalists during a time of layoffs and video pivots. Given the breadth of talent they've acquired, plenty of reporters and readers are hoping they not only succeed, but offer a sustainable, reproducible plan. The Athletic's goal is admirable: in-depth, thoughtful coverage unburdened by the demand to crank out multiple articles on a daily basis with little time for reflection, as is the norm in the industry. The current state of sports media benefits neither the overworked newspaper guys nor anyone who consumes and values high-level sports writing. But disparaging two of their competitors, SB NATION and BLEACHER REPORT, as suppliers of “empty calories” only adds to the ill will--especially coming from a startup that's losing money and suffering from a lack of diversity. Mather tried to provide more context for his comments on TWITTER--always a superb idea--and, after a few hours of that he apologized and largely recanted, clarifying that he doesn't want newspapers to wither and die. But with an influx of venture capital cash--$8 million to date--comes the demand for similar levels of growth and expansion from those selfsame VCs. Neither Mather nor Handsmann have done a good job explaining how they expect to add the number of paying readers needed to make The Athletic sustainable, save for insisting that there are hundreds of thousands of hard-core fans willing to fork over the cash for an annual subscription. Though the founders deny this is their goal, for all the bold talk of global domination, the best-case endgame could be a sale of their highly-leveraged property and an eight-figure exit strategy… Speaking of ill-considered quotes, ERIC BLEDSOE won't be playing for the PHOENIX SUNS much longer. When head coach EARL WATSON got canned on Sunday after a mere three games, Bledsoe tweeted, “I Dont wanna be here.” The following morning, he told GM RYAN MCDONOUGH he was simply expressing his dislike of the hair salon he was at, an explanation that doesn’t come close to passing the smell test. Now, Bledsoe’s been sent home and is being shopped around the league. While all this capital-d Drama has proved delightful for non-Suns fans, as SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s BEN GOLLIVER explains, McDonough and spendthrift owner ROBERT SARVER share much of the blame for this dysfunctional mess. Maybe it’s time to sell… What if the LAS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS are actually good?... The DODGERS-ASTROS WORLD SERIES is going to be a scorcher, and not just thanks to the two nifty All-Star pitchers set to take the mound today. The thermometers could crack 100 degrees for games one and two, possibly breaking the record set in 1908. Hopefully, no one in attendance will follow the lead of BUFFALO BILLS fans and lights themselves on fire... ROGER ANGELL bids the NEW YORK YANKEES adieu and ESPN waves goodbye to its brief partnership with BARSTOOL SPORTS. | | | - Robert Silverman, guest curator |
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| | | brief interviews with hideous men |
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 | The New York Times |
| “We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment. We will make business extremely difficult for them.” | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| On the eve of her return to ESPN after a controversial suspension, the lightning-rod ‘SportsCenter’ host and Donald Trump target finds herself at a sports juggernaut in political crisis. Will she be supported or bolt for a more politically focused future? | | |
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 | The Undefeated |
| Professional basketball offers the NFL a blueprint for success: embrace the black culture of the majority of your players. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| The greatest Olympic athlete of all time-with a record 23 gold medals-opens up about Russian doping, his mental health struggles, and sexual assault awareness. | | |
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 | Vice Sports |
| Boris Berian was a reluctant track star. He won a National Championship in college before losing eligibility due to poor grades. Trying to get by, he took a job at a local McDonald’s to support his comeback. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Remember what happened in the aftermath of "Nipplegate"? It was a little fuzzy for us, too. Here's a refresher. | | |
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 | Deadspin |
| If you aren't a reader of The Athletic, a subscription-based and regionally focused conglomeration of sports sites, then you've probably at least heard of them after they went on a massive hiring spree and loaded up on writers who fell victim to layoffs that swept through the industry. | | |
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 | The News & Observer |
| UNC’s leaders have a long history of pushing back against the excesses of sports. For decades, that gave Chapel Hill’s academic leaders a platform to talk about the appropriate role of sports on American campuses. | | |
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 | Sports Illustrated |
| The NBA's most hopeless franchise hit a new low after firing its coach just five days into the season. There's only one solution for this level of dysfunction: Find a new owner. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Alexander Polli was an adrenaline junkie, a daredevil who could fly through holes in rockfaces at 150mph. Our writer tells the extraordinary story of "Base," a new film starring Polli that had to be delayed when he was killed by the sport he loved. | | |
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| | | a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again |
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 | GQ |
| In an NBA redefined by the Golden State Warriors, the Bucks star might be what the future of aberrational greatness looks like. | | |
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| The Ringer |
| They might not face off at any point, but the last two pitchers to win the MVP likely hold the fate of the Fall Classic in their hands. | | |
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 | SportTechie |
| Social-impact data company iMerit, which predominantly employs underprivileged workers in India, supported KinaTrax and the Cubs the past two seasons. | | |
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 | The Hardball Times |
| From time to time, as a collective bargaining agreement approaches expiration, Major League Baseball and its players association come together to discuss the terms by which they will operate under the next agreement. As with most collective bargaining agreements governing a multi-billion dollar industry, it provides extensive terms with both significant complexity and vexing malleability. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Dropping Dwyane Wade from the starting lineup always made sense in Cleveland. | | |
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 | recode |
| The U.S. is beginning to see movement in the bike-sharing space that grew to be so popular in places like China and Europe. | | |
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 | FiveThirtyEight |
| Three weeks into the NHL season, there's little that makes sense in the standings. The Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers -- Eastern Conference stalwarts in recent years -- have combined for three wins. Meanwhile, several of the league's recent doormats -- like the Philadelphia Flyers and the New Jersey Devils -- are looking surprisingly dangerous. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Let’s keep this short, out of respect: the Houston Astros have moved along to the World Series. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| The road back to professional soccer begins in the dark. Two hours before dawn on the first Sunday in September, a group of 11- and 12-year-old boys have piled into a van outside their coach's house in London to start their 17-hour workday. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| After 29 years away, the Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the World Series and ready to bring home a title. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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