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Deadspin Examines The Failure of “The Undefeated”

Jason Barrett

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Last month, The Atlantic published an 18,000-word article by Ta-Nehisi Coates called “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” It was the second epic piece in what appears to be a series in which Coates examines the toll of white supremacy as American policy on black life in the United States. The article was every bit as harrowing, illuminating, and infuriating as its famous predecessor, “The Case For Reparations,” which investigates the damage dealt to blacks through this country’s long tradition of housing discrimination.

Coates is one of the great social writers of our time, and singularly qualified to do work of this scale and ambition, which changes how Americans view their own history and how they view themselves. The Atlantic, for its part, is nearly singular in its willingness and ability to approve, finance, and publish this kind of work. As beautiful a writer as he is, what makes Coates’s writing so powerful and so radicalizing is his reporting and research. His telling of history is nauseating precisely because it amounts to no more than the arresting arrangement of iron facts. Even in a piece like “Reparations,” there is very little that can be described as controversial in his pieces. The only controversy comes in how Americans react to them.

Over the last 18 months, I’ve reported on what’s now known as The Undefeated, the black-interest site ESPN gifted to Jason Whitlock in August 2013, which still has yet to get off the ground. Pitched as a “Black Grantland,” The Undefeated was conceived in large part as a place where ESPN could address race in America with work like Coates’s. For 18 months, multiple ESPNers close to the site have excitedly or regretfully described an alternate reality or series of events in which Coates, employed by The Undefeated, would write something like “The Black Family in the Age of Incarceration” and publish it on ESPN.com. When Whitlock took over as editor in chief, he attempted to poach Coates from The Atlantic as a statement of intent, offering to triple his salary and “make [him] a star.” Coates, of course, declined.

After we published a story in April detailing Whitlock’s nightmarish, comical reign as the head of the site, Whitlock was removed, and I was told, again, that Coates was, again, an option to join the team. This has always struck me as no more than a delusion, because Coates’s sober writing on race is confrontational and uncompromising and unlike anything that ever has been or can be published at the Worldwide Leader. Coates’s work would never appear at The Undefeated for the same reason Whitlock was chosen to run the site in the first place, and for the same reason that even with him now out of the picture, The Undefeated remains a dead letter. From the day Whitlock was hired, the site has been at odds with itself, its actions belying its own premise and purpose. The Undefeated, like the Worldwide Leader itself, was not designed to engage with the truth.

To understand how badly Jason Whitlock failed ESPN and his handpicked team at The Undefeated, consider this: he was removed as editor of The Undefeated in June and the site is still a smoldering heap, no more than a single webpage with links to 19 articles written by the staff over the last 27 months. No women have published a piece; no one on staff under 45 has published more than three. There are talented young writers and editors at the site who have had their careers stifled—potentially even ruined—by Whitlock. Undefeated articles that appear on ESPN.com do so without any announcement, and there is no continuity between them that would suggest an ethos, an identity, or a point of view.

“They’re just putting out branded content,” an ESPNer close to the site says. “Just some stories about black people.”

It’s worse once you consider how important this year was for black people, and for black history. March marked the 50th anniversary of the protest march from Selma to Montgomery. In early April, Walter Scott was shot in the back by a police officer in North Charleston, S.C. Two weeks later, Freddie Gray died after his spine was nearly severed while in police custody. In June, Dylann Roof walked into Charleston, S.C.’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and shot nine people to death in the name of white supremacy. Sandra Bland died in police custody in July. Eric Garner was choked to death in July 2o14, and Michael Brown was shot dead a month later. The Watts Riots took place 50 years ago, from Aug. 11-17. Late August marked the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. There’s Serena, Bernie, #BlackLivesMatter, and Viola Davis. This year was the perfect time for a well-funded black-interest site written and edited by blacks, and yet no site exists.

“This is a colossal missed opportunity,” says a source.

The only news to break about The Undefeated since Whitlock left came in late July, when we reported that ESPN wanted Howard Bryant to oversee the site’s reboot in an “editor-at-large” role. There was immediate interest from black personalities within ESPN who wanted to be part of a black project but wanted nothing to do with Whitlock.

There was outside interest, as well. Names Deadspin heard linked to the Bryant reboot included Roxane Gay, Claudia Rankine, Jamil Smith, Spike Lee, and—speculatively—Coates.

These are legitimate stars, but there’s a world of difference between names coming up and anything happening, and for now, nothing is happening. Leon Carter—The Undefeated’s interim editor and Whitlock’s former right hand—will almost surely get booted. Bryant wants the gig and seemed an obvious pick, but won’t get a shot. There has been almost no communication between ESPN executives and Bryant regarding the site in months. The little momentum the site had after cutting Whitlock out has died out.

One theory is that Whitlock’s failure is to blame for Bryant’s misfortune. In order to make a splash, ESPN appointed Whitlock as editor-in-chief. Whitlock has spent his entire career alone, though, churning out 800-word columns from the comfort of his own home. He’s never been anyone’s boss; he’s never managed anyone; and due to his personality and nearly two decades of writing in isolation, he is breathtakingly paranoid. He saw enemies—challengers to his authority who would steal his legacy from under him—in the very faces of the staff he hired. Whitlock was more concerned with keeping power than utilizing it. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

Over time, ESPN president John Skipper has learned that writing is a vastly different skill than editing, which is completely removed from managing people. Whitlock was ousted a month after Skipper publicly executed Grantland editor-in-chief Bill Simmons. Simmons, a writer, was a great and beloved boss who could manage people, and knew enough to hire a capable team of editors around him and let them do their work. But as an ESPN employee, he was notoriously petulant and needy. Grantland has an enormous budget, and many in its staff of over 50 writers, editors, and contributors have comically lucrative salaries relative to industry norms, all without Grantland making a profit or boasting a very large readership. Still, in an interview with Re/Code, Simmons said he needed more.

“The problem with Bill was Bill asked for the world,” an ESPN employee says. “He always needed more after they gave him everything. Pulitzer Prize winners, Charlie Pierce, everything.”

As EICs, Simmons and Whitlock were polar opposites, but both of their problems stemmed from hubris. They were both writers—what ESPN calls “talent”—and so Skipper decreed that ESPN would no longer permit talent to run Grantland or The Undefeated. Bryant is a columnist for ESPN: The Magazine—talent—and so he’s disqualified from the EIC post regardless of his potential. (Multiple sources have told Deadspin that one man Skipper is pursuing for the role is Kevin Merida, managing editor ofThe Washington Post. Merida is interested; he met with Skipper in Los Angeles last month, and according to a source, he’s been quietly asking if some of his favorite Post employees would be open to following him to ESPN.)

A second prevailing theory, though, is much simpler.

It’s easy to say now that Whitlock was destined to fail at The Undefeated, but that’s a harsh reading of events. Whitlock is an unsophisticated thinker on race who wrote his belief in black pathology into the The Undefeated’s DNA, and whose ideas about respectability politics bled into each piece he edited before he was tossed aside. His ideology was formed over 20 years of writing opinions on race that were largely inaccurate, but, more importantly, firmly aligned with the opinions of many whites. Though he’d alienated many blacks along the way, including talented ESPN colleagues, his readings of American history were agreeable to an enormous portion of ESPN’s audience. He was decidedly safe and unchallenging. Through this lens, Whitlock was, in theory at least, theperfect choice to run the site.

To read the rest of this fascinating article visit Deadspin where it was originally published

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John Anderson Announces Retirement from SportsCenter on ESPN

“I don’t really know what’s quite next, I have some things in the fire. But SportsCenter will not be it.”

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Photo of John Anderson
Credit: Mediaite

Longtime SportsCenter anchor John Anderson has announced that when his contract comes up at the end of June, he will no longer be doing SportsCenter for ESPN. Anderson, who joined ESPN in 1999 does plan to continue covering certain events, but after 25 years he believes it is time to stop doing ESPN’s flagship show. Anderson spoke on his podcast, The Inside Wisconsin Show and prior to the episode’s release tomorrow, a clip was released:

“My contract runs out at ESPN at the end of June,” Anderson said. “I have decided that that will be the end. I’m going to leave the company. I’m going to sort of retire from ‘SportsCenter.’ I’m going to get to do a few track-and-field things, I’m going to get to continue to do the Boston Marathon and the New York Marathon – which I love – and some NCAA track meets and some SEC stuff.

“I am incredibly excited about that. It’s been a good run…I feel like it’s been a good run. The operation has changed. I don’t know that it’s passed me by, but it’s taken its toll and I still want to be able to do the best shows that I can, and I don’t know that if in years 26 or 27 I have the stamina to do it again.  

“So, I’m done…I don’t really know what’s quite next. I have some things in the fire. But SportsCenter will not be it.”

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Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo: NFL Streaming Games ‘Gets Obscene’

“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes.”

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Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo
Courtesy: Cindy Ord, Getty Images for SiriusXM

The National Football League has announced that the Philadelphia Eagles opening matchup taking place from San Paolo, Brazil against an opponent to be determined for the 2024 season will stream exclusively on Peacock. Even though the game will be exclusive to Peacock – thus requiring fans to subscribe in order to watch – it will also be broadcast on an over-the-air network in the local markets of the teams involved in the game. Christopher ‘Mad Dog’ Russo is not a fan of this decision by the league.

During his “What Are You Mad About?” segment on Wednesday morning’s edition of First Take on ESPN, Russo expressed his indignation towards the game being exclusively streamed by Peacock. Within his discourse, he presented a hypothetical scenario of an Eagles fan who continues to spend money to see the team at Lincoln Financial Field and how they would not fly down to Brazil to see the game. Russo continued by saying that the fan would then miss the game without having Peacock so the NFL is able to drive more revenue.

“It’s hard to get Peacock; I don’t want to get Peacock, alright?,” Russo said. “I want to watch the game normal. Give me [Joe] Buck and [Troy] Aikman, give me the CBS crew, [Tom] Brady’s going to do it. Give me something! Don’t put the Eagles 9,000 miles away and then put them on a cable thing on Peacock which you’ve got to subscribe to so NBC can make more money.”

NBC Sports will broadcast an opening night game during Week 1 on Thursday, Sept. 5, along with a Sunday Night Football contest on Sunday, Sept. 8. Within its stretch of primetime football matchups, which also includes a Saturday night Big Ten Conference game, the Friday night NFL game seems to be the only one exclusive to Peacock. The streaming platform is coming off a strong performance for its exclusive Wild Card round playoff matchup, drawing an average of 23 million viewers and becoming the most-streamed NFL game in history.

This past season of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video garnered a 24% increase in viewers compared to its first season, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. These metrics demonstrate that the broadcast property averaged 11.86 million viewers per game during the 2023 NFL season. The OTT streaming platform also presented the inaugural NFL game on Black Friday, which averaged 9.61 million viewers.

Prime Video will reportedly have the exclusive rights to an NFL playoff game next season, and it has continued building out its sports content vertical. The company has reportedly been exploring a potential media rights deal with the National Basketball Association as its national television contract is nearing expiration. The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery are currently in the midst of exclusive negotiating windows with the NBA that conclude on Monday, April 22, after which Amazon will be able to bid.

“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes,” Russo said, referring to the reported agreement for next season. “I know the NFL prints money – I understand how big they are, but boy this gets obscene.”

“One-hundred percent right,” First Take host Molly Qerim added. “I cannot stand having 8,000 different apps. It needs to be streamlined. It’s annoying – you have to remember all these passwords. I don’t have Peacock; I don’t want Peacock. I completely agree with you.”

ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler proceeded to convey the dedication of Eagles fans in showing up to the stadium and watching their team. Russo agreed with him that Eagles fans will travel down to Brazil since they pack stadiums and fervently support their team. Off of that point, ESPN NFL reporter Kimberley A. Martin explained that she believes the devotion and zeal from the fanbase is part of the reason why this is a shrewd decision by the NFL.

“This is genius,” Martin said. “You do put the Eagles – that type of team – because they’re going to buy it.”

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NCAA Women’s Championship Round 2 on ESPN Up 121%; Iowa-West Virginia Hits 4.9 Million Viewers

ESPN and ABC posted their four most-watched Women’s March Madness second-round games ever, with Iowa/West Virginia averaging 4.9 million viewers

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Graphic of the NCAA Women's basketball tournament

The women’s college basketball hot streak continues with the second round of the NCAA Women’s Championship on ESPN averaging 1.4 million viewers all weekend. Viewership was at its highest for Caitlin Clark’s final game in Iowa when her Iowa Hawkeyes defeated West Virginia, which amassed a staggering 4.9 million viewers and peaked at 6.4 million.

ESPN and ABC achieved their four-most watched second-round games on record this season. Outside of Iowa/WVU, the matchup between UConn and Stanford averaged 2.1 million viewers, the LSU/Middle Tennessee matchup garnered 2 million viewers, and the Kansas/USC tilt averaged 1.8 million viewers. This matches its first-round coverage, which also set marks for its most-viewed games ever.

According to ESPN’s VP of research Flora Kelly, Iowa/WVU’s 4.9 million viewers would have beaten every Women’s National Championship game from 2005 to 2022:

ESPN is no doubt excited for a potential Elite 8 matchup between Iowa and LSU, a rematch of last year’s national championship game. That game averaged 9.9 million viewers, shattering the previous record for a women’s college basketball game on any network. All it needs is an Iowa win over Colorado and an LSU win over UCLA to make their dream a reality. A potential Iowa/South Carolina national title game could surpass even that.

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