For three short, glorious days, the Deadspin crew was at it again.
Friday, Tom Ley announced the launch of Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog dot com, which would run for three days only.
Like the old ship its crew manned before it, UTSB did not stick to sports; boasting an astonishing 64 posts over three days, UTSB’s library included comedic gems like Drew Magary’s bizzare brag about catching dog poop with his hand, an Albert Burneko piece titled Climate Change is the Enemy of Chicken Stock, a Dave McKenna story about the time Dave had his dignity destroyed by Sam Kinison, and Barry Petchesky being very, very wrong.
The Three Day Circus
UTSB was spawned when Joel Johnson – Dashlane’s head of communications, and Gawker alumni – approached Tom Ley, Deadspin alumni, with an offer he couldn’t refuse: Tom and the gang could write whatever they wanted, and Dashlane would underwrite the event.
Unlike [cough] Baby Nut [cough], UTSB was not a reinvention or relaunch; it was a showcase for some of the best MSPaint art and articles ever produced by sports writers.
It also featured some journalisming, too, from surprise guest contributor Diane Moskovitz.
The Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog went into archive mode Sunday, shortly after the big sporps game completed, with a short farewell letter from the site’s operator, one Tom Ley:
Thank you for supporting Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog. We hope you enjoyed the last three days as much as we did. The blogs will remain here for your reading pleasure, but we will be returning to relative obscurity.
If you’d like to keep up with our individual freelance work, just follow this Twitter account.
Tom Ley, “Goodbye From Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog”, 2 February 2020
Remembering Some Good Blogs
Make Your Queso With A Cheap Block Of Processed Cheese, You Cowards
Kelsey McKinney preaches the good truth.
Luis Paez-Pumar, the fresh prince of digital prose profiles Roberto Firmino. Art by Chris Thompson.
Christ Thompson clocks in, to tell everyone exhaustively that Isaiah Thomas is butt.
OK, look, this piece by Drew Magary was too good to not include. Art by Chris Thompson @ UTSB.
What The Hell Is Going On With The Saints And The Catholic Church?
Diane Moskovitz brings the serious journalismism to bear in a thoroughly documented post.
Quowlity art work there!
It was good to read some hockey mentions. I like hockey, especially when played on ice.
That was an awesome event, and I hope some PR maven figures out that dumping more money on Facebook is stupid compared to paying good writers and reporters to write and report.
I just heard a clip from Patton Oswalt talking about how he used to work for MTV in the 1990s, and while he was there Sony dropped FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to produce a dance and song segment on the MTV Awards to promote Wild Wild West.
Marketers are idiots, they have tons of money to burn, and they cannot figure out how much of a bang for the buck they would get reviving Deadspin and Splinter.
And now I just read that Clickhole has broken free of Herb Spanfeller’s grasp and was bought by the game company Cards Against Humanity.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/cards-against-humanity-buys-clickhole
I am not sure how that will work, but I guess they maybe think they can generate enough ad revenue to keep it going once it’s free from the moron’s micromanagement.
Hope more G/O gets to go too. I hope The Onion finally gets free too.
Was there any official response from Spankfucker? And did Dashlane post any analysis of the traffic? I hate that in 2020, these things matter, but UTSB.com felt like a raging success and I loved having the old gang back, even knowing it would only be a short time. I think I read every article and commented often, thinking it would drive the traffic numbers to justify doing it again.
I think it’s safe to say that UTSB beat Deadspin over that time.
Still, I am *DYING* for closure on the Kellen Winslow plea deal, and UTSB didn’t help me there.