I’d love to read a column from someone from someone who has been there on the insane sexual politics of women’s sports within women’s sports. I played a sport in college in an era where guys wouldn’t be out overall but were definitely out to teammates, that was fine. Mens sports were mostly a safe space unified in winning shit.
Women’s sports seemed like the hunger games no matter who you talked to, no matter where they were. It was also an environment where on some teams relationships between players could lead to some insanely toxic dynamics. You see this bubble up occasionally like when the US women’s soccer coach gets slapped down for saying something like “you know we shouldn’t pick people based on who they’re sleeping with,” but I don’t think people have any idea how crazy (and honestly funny) it can get.
The best approach would be a gonzo/Ball Four approach, especially since they take themselves so seriously.
Rarely shared fact 1: ff is the most abusive form of relationship from: mf mm ff.
Rarely shared fact 2: majority of women report a preference working for a male manager + majority of women report less job satisfaction with a female manager.
The book would be crazy - more Game of Thrones crazy, less Dennis Rodman crazy. I'd read a well written book from inside the WNBA locker room, definitely. I imagine the author would suffer attacks from WNBA and alphabet-group adjacent mobs, which would be prohibiting to someone who values peace.
My favorite is it seems like every fifth female women’s coach fired sues for sexual discrimination (and often wins), while men’s coaches are fired left and right. How can it be discrimination to be treated the same?
According to their latest annual report Defector had as many as 42k subscribers and an annual subscription revenue of $3.8M. Seems like a lot of subscribers for a publication that doesn’t seem to generate any buzz outside of its paywall. Maybe it’s for the best that those lunatics are kept inside their own garden.
Regarding the NFL's popularity: I would make the case that the thing that actually drives the NFL's popularity - the league's superpower - is it's ability to facilitate socializing. Ultimately, the reason we engage with the NFL - and sports generally - is because the NFL anchors many of our closest relationships. The hometown team is the reason we have that text thread with our hometown friends; fantasy leagues are really just social clubs; and, the structure of Sunday - a day of rest culturally designated as a time to congregate together - facilitates easy gatherings. This is not to say that the scarcity, violence, drama, athleticism, etc are not important ingredients, it's simply to say that they are not the primary reason we watch. We watch to be together with others, and I would argue that it's not the people on the field but the people with us in the stands/sports bars/living rooms that generate all the attention and engagement.
I read the CyberTruck question as wondering if it would be a bigger deal if it were not MAGA-coded. That some might have gone for it, but either hate Musk's politics, or don't want to discuss his politics every time someone sees their car.
Yeah, Defector's full-throated support of Lia Thomas competing on the women's team, and their sneering insistence that anyone opposed was a backwards-thinking bigot, was my final straw with them. Glad to see I can continue to ignore them.
I can say KD signing with GSW was a clear line of demarcation for a lot of my friends that were casual NBA fans. Also something I remember about that time was the overwhelming smugness coming from NBA media folks towards anyone that questioned how KD could leave a franchise that he basically built for a team that already had a bonafide number 1, who already had an MVP and a ring, AND who just came back from a 3-1 WCF deficit to send KD packing.
I love the 12 team college football playoff. I've been itching for a system like this for decades.
The only thing I'd fix is the bye system; don't give it to the top 4 conference winners. Instead, a conference winner gets a spot in the dance, but the Top 4 ranked teams get byes, period.
They generally don't hurt the NFL teams. Can't find an exact up to date number but teams coming off a bye win their next game something like 63 to 67 percent of the time.
"If Trump had been re-elected, would our left/right understanding of vaccine skepticism completely flipped? I think about this all the time - Republicans urging people that the vax is safe, while the NYT reports on minor myocarditis as if its everywhere, because it was Trump-led. Think that would have happened?"
Interesting case study is republican/democrat divide in election integrity and how it did NOT flip when Trump won.
I think that any discussion about KD joining the Warriors and 'ruining' the NBA must be paired with the fact that the '15-'16 Warriors won 73 games in the regular season, but few consider that an achievement because they lost in the Finals. Not many people cite winning 73 games in the regular season as one of the great achievement in basketball history because it was all wiped away.
Yes, it was a historic loss due to the 3-1 lead, but they got meme'd and relentlessly made fun of, which is understandable, to a point, but it reinforced the 'title or bust' culture. KD joined and became a multiplier for the apathy of the regular season.
What's so insane about the Defector article about San Jose State's women's volleyball team? I just read it and I found it to be fairly sane. People can disagree about whether the player in question should or shouldn't be on the team, but what's factual and clear is that the player has been on the team for 3 years, and it only became an issue this year because of political grandstanding. Apparently there were no forfeits the past two years, and nobody was freaking out that an outsider was "dominating" the sport. This was actually the opposite of the Lia Thomas situation! A supposed trans athlete playing on a women's team and not dominating and not elevating the team to absurd unfair heights. And for 2 years nobody cared! For all we know, teams may have taken special joy in beating San Jose State. It all just seems so stupid and so reality TV. Of course the Trumpers gravitate to this stuff like moths to a flame, but ultimately it's the boycotting teams that lost. They didn't win in actual court, they didn't win on the volleyball court, and the story will fizzle out into nothing because it was a non story. To be honest, I thought the Lia Thomas situation was terrible and was very sympathetic to the women who were impacted. I don't think Lia Thomas swimming against women makes any sense! Yeah i said it! I'm an antiTrump libtard and yet I still agree on this! But this SJSt volleyball situation? Entirely bad faith actors and entirely unnecessary. And my guess is the women who boycotted will look back on it in ten years, and feel extremely stupid for doing that. For who? For what? They were played by activists and will have only regret to show for it.
The amount of times that it’s acceptable for someone who is male-born to play in women’s sports is zero.
I will never understand these arguments:
“Well, the player is not dominating,” or “it only happens in very rare instances.”
Of all of the issues that people on the internet have argued about in my entire life, this is the most open and shut case that’s ever existed. It can never happen and the reasons are obvious to everyone with eyes and a functioning brain.
Notice that we have never heard about any instance of a female born player, playing in men’s sports. Why is that?
The reason you don't hear about most of these things is because........ unless the person is dominating, nobody cares! And we know this, because you had no idea this volleyball thing was happening the two previous seasons! You think every trans person is women's sports is public about it? Clearly not. And clearly there are situations where it doesn't disrupt anything so people let it go. Now to your overall point, I don't necessarily disagree. But unless people in the actual sport and actual league complain, how do you stop it? Are you going to be the "concerned neighbor" who demands all the kids take their pants off and show their genitals before the kid soccer games? Because that's the kind of stuff that some people are proposing. Not a good look for anybody.
Yes, I will own up to my ignorance in terms of not knowing every high school and college roster in America. But just because I personally don't know about it, doesn't make it okay. As I type this, someone is committing theft in some form. Me not knowing about it has no bearing on whether it's okay or not.
As for how it's policed, kids don't keep secrets very well. Word gets around pretty quickly. But I'm not talking about situations where the reason it's happening is because the heads of these leagues have just yet to discover it. I'm talking about the people at San Jose State, and the Mountain West and the NCAA who know what's happening and allow it.
I’d love to read a column from someone from someone who has been there on the insane sexual politics of women’s sports within women’s sports. I played a sport in college in an era where guys wouldn’t be out overall but were definitely out to teammates, that was fine. Mens sports were mostly a safe space unified in winning shit.
Women’s sports seemed like the hunger games no matter who you talked to, no matter where they were. It was also an environment where on some teams relationships between players could lead to some insanely toxic dynamics. You see this bubble up occasionally like when the US women’s soccer coach gets slapped down for saying something like “you know we shouldn’t pick people based on who they’re sleeping with,” but I don’t think people have any idea how crazy (and honestly funny) it can get.
The best approach would be a gonzo/Ball Four approach, especially since they take themselves so seriously.
Rarely shared fact 1: ff is the most abusive form of relationship from: mf mm ff.
Rarely shared fact 2: majority of women report a preference working for a male manager + majority of women report less job satisfaction with a female manager.
The book would be crazy - more Game of Thrones crazy, less Dennis Rodman crazy. I'd read a well written book from inside the WNBA locker room, definitely. I imagine the author would suffer attacks from WNBA and alphabet-group adjacent mobs, which would be prohibiting to someone who values peace.
I'd like to see the data on this. Do you have any resources?
My favorite is it seems like every fifth female women’s coach fired sues for sexual discrimination (and often wins), while men’s coaches are fired left and right. How can it be discrimination to be treated the same?
Re: Defector, a valuable case study how the kind of people who write for Defector can be ignored at no cost.
According to their latest annual report Defector had as many as 42k subscribers and an annual subscription revenue of $3.8M. Seems like a lot of subscribers for a publication that doesn’t seem to generate any buzz outside of its paywall. Maybe it’s for the best that those lunatics are kept inside their own garden.
https://defector.com/defector-annual-report-year-four
Their expenses are shockingly high but at the itemized level seem pretty sane. Just shows how brutal the economics of online publishing are
Regarding the NFL's popularity: I would make the case that the thing that actually drives the NFL's popularity - the league's superpower - is it's ability to facilitate socializing. Ultimately, the reason we engage with the NFL - and sports generally - is because the NFL anchors many of our closest relationships. The hometown team is the reason we have that text thread with our hometown friends; fantasy leagues are really just social clubs; and, the structure of Sunday - a day of rest culturally designated as a time to congregate together - facilitates easy gatherings. This is not to say that the scarcity, violence, drama, athleticism, etc are not important ingredients, it's simply to say that they are not the primary reason we watch. We watch to be together with others, and I would argue that it's not the people on the field but the people with us in the stands/sports bars/living rooms that generate all the attention and engagement.
I read the CyberTruck question as wondering if it would be a bigger deal if it were not MAGA-coded. That some might have gone for it, but either hate Musk's politics, or don't want to discuss his politics every time someone sees their car.
Have I missed a note on no longer podcasting 2 days a week? It’s why I subbed personally.
Can we get a monthly mailbag?
Sold
Yeah, Defector's full-throated support of Lia Thomas competing on the women's team, and their sneering insistence that anyone opposed was a backwards-thinking bigot, was my final straw with them. Glad to see I can continue to ignore them.
I can say KD signing with GSW was a clear line of demarcation for a lot of my friends that were casual NBA fans. Also something I remember about that time was the overwhelming smugness coming from NBA media folks towards anyone that questioned how KD could leave a franchise that he basically built for a team that already had a bonafide number 1, who already had an MVP and a ring, AND who just came back from a 3-1 WCF deficit to send KD packing.
Your reverse use of quote annotations is just an incredible troll 😂
I love the 12 team college football playoff. I've been itching for a system like this for decades.
The only thing I'd fix is the bye system; don't give it to the top 4 conference winners. Instead, a conference winner gets a spot in the dance, but the Top 4 ranked teams get byes, period.
I bet you byes are bad for the teams that get them. As in, they underperform the spread.
Note, I haven’t googled any research on this in the NFL so I could be way off.
They generally don't hurt the NFL teams. Can't find an exact up to date number but teams coming off a bye win their next game something like 63 to 67 percent of the time.
I will second that an HoS pod with You, Andrew Sharp, Spike Eskin, and Jay Caspian Kang would be a lot of fun!
Does Ethan have the skills to do a four man pod?
"If Trump had been re-elected, would our left/right understanding of vaccine skepticism completely flipped? I think about this all the time - Republicans urging people that the vax is safe, while the NYT reports on minor myocarditis as if its everywhere, because it was Trump-led. Think that would have happened?"
Interesting case study is republican/democrat divide in election integrity and how it did NOT flip when Trump won.
Best pod lineup doesnt include Wos or Amin?
I think that any discussion about KD joining the Warriors and 'ruining' the NBA must be paired with the fact that the '15-'16 Warriors won 73 games in the regular season, but few consider that an achievement because they lost in the Finals. Not many people cite winning 73 games in the regular season as one of the great achievement in basketball history because it was all wiped away.
Yes, it was a historic loss due to the 3-1 lead, but they got meme'd and relentlessly made fun of, which is understandable, to a point, but it reinforced the 'title or bust' culture. KD joined and became a multiplier for the apathy of the regular season.
What's so insane about the Defector article about San Jose State's women's volleyball team? I just read it and I found it to be fairly sane. People can disagree about whether the player in question should or shouldn't be on the team, but what's factual and clear is that the player has been on the team for 3 years, and it only became an issue this year because of political grandstanding. Apparently there were no forfeits the past two years, and nobody was freaking out that an outsider was "dominating" the sport. This was actually the opposite of the Lia Thomas situation! A supposed trans athlete playing on a women's team and not dominating and not elevating the team to absurd unfair heights. And for 2 years nobody cared! For all we know, teams may have taken special joy in beating San Jose State. It all just seems so stupid and so reality TV. Of course the Trumpers gravitate to this stuff like moths to a flame, but ultimately it's the boycotting teams that lost. They didn't win in actual court, they didn't win on the volleyball court, and the story will fizzle out into nothing because it was a non story. To be honest, I thought the Lia Thomas situation was terrible and was very sympathetic to the women who were impacted. I don't think Lia Thomas swimming against women makes any sense! Yeah i said it! I'm an antiTrump libtard and yet I still agree on this! But this SJSt volleyball situation? Entirely bad faith actors and entirely unnecessary. And my guess is the women who boycotted will look back on it in ten years, and feel extremely stupid for doing that. For who? For what? They were played by activists and will have only regret to show for it.
The amount of times that it’s acceptable for someone who is male-born to play in women’s sports is zero.
I will never understand these arguments:
“Well, the player is not dominating,” or “it only happens in very rare instances.”
Of all of the issues that people on the internet have argued about in my entire life, this is the most open and shut case that’s ever existed. It can never happen and the reasons are obvious to everyone with eyes and a functioning brain.
Notice that we have never heard about any instance of a female born player, playing in men’s sports. Why is that?
The reason you don't hear about most of these things is because........ unless the person is dominating, nobody cares! And we know this, because you had no idea this volleyball thing was happening the two previous seasons! You think every trans person is women's sports is public about it? Clearly not. And clearly there are situations where it doesn't disrupt anything so people let it go. Now to your overall point, I don't necessarily disagree. But unless people in the actual sport and actual league complain, how do you stop it? Are you going to be the "concerned neighbor" who demands all the kids take their pants off and show their genitals before the kid soccer games? Because that's the kind of stuff that some people are proposing. Not a good look for anybody.
Yes, I will own up to my ignorance in terms of not knowing every high school and college roster in America. But just because I personally don't know about it, doesn't make it okay. As I type this, someone is committing theft in some form. Me not knowing about it has no bearing on whether it's okay or not.
As for how it's policed, kids don't keep secrets very well. Word gets around pretty quickly. But I'm not talking about situations where the reason it's happening is because the heads of these leagues have just yet to discover it. I'm talking about the people at San Jose State, and the Mountain West and the NCAA who know what's happening and allow it.