Episode description

Hello!

In our Discord server, which you can access by subscribing to the show for a measly $5 a month, a user asked me to not do shows about sports. I took this request seriously as I generally aim to please, but am sad to announce that after much deliberation, I do think it’s worth having a conversation about a very distinct phenomenon I’ve observed over the past few years.

As recently as 2020, it was difficult to have a conversation about sports without bringing in all that “politics.” LeBron was talking about Trayvon Martin and George Floyd. The NFL, still enmeshed in the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick, put together a variety of initiatives around ending racism or whatever. The NBA had its weird bubble spectacle with all its Nike approved slogans on every surface possible, including the player jerseys.

Today, almost all of that is gone. Sports coverage, for the most part, feels explicitly apolitical. Even the NBA’s big concession post the summer of 2020 — that they would not play any games on election days and use their arenas as polling sites — came and went this year without any real interruption to what had become a non-stop In Season Tournament hype cycle.

Are we in a period of overcorrection? To discuss this question, I brought on Bradford William Davis, an investigative sports journalist and a former sports columnist at the New York Daily News.

Here is a sampling of Bradford’s work.

A lengthy investigation into Major League Baseball’s practice of using multiple balls during the season. (for my money, one of the finest works of investigative sports reporting in the past five years)

A look into injury and labor concerns in the NFL

An investigation into sexual assault and misconduct in US Fencing

TIMESTAMPS

6:02- are we in a moment of overcorrection for politics in sports media?

17:05 - OHTANI TALK and did he not come to SF because of crime, homelessness and wokeness?

28:45 - DRAYMOND TALK and “mental health” as a catch-all explanation.

45:00 - a defense of investigative journalism in sports

52:00 - JUST TELL US WHAT’S HAPPENING, REPORTERS!

ANNOUNCEMENT: We will be taking the next two weeks off for the break but will be back on Wednesday January 3rd.

Thank you!

Jay