Neither of your responses addresses, in any way, the critical response I posted. I probably shouldn’t be surprised at something as lazy, fearful, and intellectually censoring as “haters gonna hate”, but I suppose I thought someone whose job it is to write about sports would be able to absorb a well-written breakdown and respond to the actual content of the reply.

I would’ve been surprised by a response of, “Joe, I didn’t put all that much thought into it, my bosses wanted something impossibly relevant to the Olympics, my knowledge base is pretty baseline, and my deadline crept up on me so I spit this out.” I understand the less-bold and more ass-covering response of saying nothing.

But carelessly posting an article that is banal, not even theoretically accurate, doesn’t follow the “just for fun” rules you invented, and is potentially insulting to the people you write about and write for (athletes and sports fans), only damages the Sports Illustrated brand. The article, and followup of finding shelter in the one positive comment and summarily dismissing every cogent, critical response (mine wasn’t the only one) as “any publicity = good publicity”, when your job is Journalist, is not doing something right. It’s embarrassing.