Deadspin

Deadspin
URL	http://www.deadspin.com/
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Blog
Registration	Optional
Owner	Gawker Media
Created by	Will Leitch (Editor in Chief) Rick Chandler (Associate Editor) Matt Sussman, Unsilent Majority, JE Skeets (Weekend Editors)
Launched	September 9, 2005
Current status	Active

Deadspin is a sports website owned by Gawker Media that claims to deliver sports "without access, favor or discretion." The site launched in September 2005. With 1.098 million unique visitors and about 7 million page views in January 2007^[1], Deadspin was the second highest trafficked sports blog on the internet, behind only AOL Fanhouse. Since AOL Fanhouse is a collection of various blogs even AOL admits that Deadspin may be the highest trafficked traditional blog.^[2]

Deadspin's editor is Will Leitch, author and a founding editor of the New York City-based culture website, "The Black Table". Rick Chandler is the associate editor, and blogger The Mighty MJD was the weekend editor until July 1, 2007, when he announced his resignation and that the weekend slot would be filled by the trio of Matt Sussman, Unsilent Majority, and JE Skeets. The editorial tone is similar to that of its sister site Gawker.com, sarcastic, humorous and often critical of mainstream media personalities.

Content

The site posts commentaries, recaps and previews of the major sports stories of the day, as well as sports-related anecdotes, rumors and YouTube videos. Like Gawker.com, stories on Deadspin come from anonymous tips, readers and other sports blogs.

Features

In addition to its normal blog content, Deadspin runs semi-regular features from correspondents, such as David Hirshey's columns about the FA Premier League and A.J. Daulerio's "Cultural Oddsmaker", formerly a feature from the short-lived Gawker Media gambling site he edited, Oddjack.

During major sporting events such as the Super Bowl and NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, Deadspin has run real-time commentaries on the television broadcast, known as "Pants Parties" after a quote from Steve Carell's character Brick Tamland in the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The site has also had contributors report from sites of major events.

Other features include Five Tiny Tidbits On..., which profiles participating teams in an upcoming event such as the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and the FIFA World Cup, one by one. Deadspin also occasionally interviews authors of sports books in a feature titled Sports Author With Pure Hearts; past interview subjects include Jeff Pearlman, author of Love Me, Hate Me and Sam Walker, author of Fantasyland.

The site's comment feature often takes a life of its own, with groups of commenters often coming together to form blogs of their own, such as Kissing Suzy Kolber, Melt Your Face-Off, Deadon or Ladies..., harkening back to the site's old rule that all commenters must be bloggers in their own right. Site meet-ups (also called "Pants Parties") are often advertised on the site, usually at baseball games or other sporting events.

Awards

Deadspin introduced two honors in 2006. The Deadspin Hall of Fame and the Sports Human of the Year Award, Deadspin's answer to Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year and Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

Sports Human of the Year Award

The 2006 Sports Human of the Year award was won by Barbaro, despite not being human. The Sports Human of the Year award, or SHOTY, is run in a single elimination NCAA Final Four style format. Readers were allowed to nominate competitors with the top 16 selected and seeded by the editors^[3]. Readers then voted in head-to-head match ups for whom they thought should advance. Two months after the voting process began, Barbaro beat out a heavily favored Chris Berman amid voting irregularities.^[4]

Mainstream recognition

Sports Illustrated cited two stories that came from Deadspin, photographs of Matt Leinart partying in New York City and the first published report that outfielder Matt Lawton had tested positive for steroids, as two of the top web stories of 2005, and Time named the site one of the 50 coolest websites of 2006.^[5][6] In March 2006, Leitch blogged live from the NCAA Basketball Tournament as an official media guest of CBS Sports.^[7] He also "glogged" Super Bowl XLI for CBS in 2007.^[8]

"You're with me, leather", a phrase allegedly used by ESPN anchor Chris Berman, appeared in an anecdote submitted by a site contributor, became a running gag among readers and was used on-air by television personalities such as ESPN's Tony Kornheiser and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.^[9]

On February 8, 2007, on Around the Horn, Jay Mariotti criticized the idea of athletes blogging the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The host, Tony Reali, quickly interrupted Mariotti and muted him. At the close of the show Reali could be heard yelling "Don't take my Deadspin away from me!"^[10]

On March 6th, 2007, Around the Horn ran a segment about Peyton Manning making an appearance at a 16-year-old's birthday party. Tony Reali thanked Deadspin for the tip.

References

External links

• Deadspin.com
• Deadspin Places 1st on Top 100 Sports Blog List

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