Farewell and Adieu: 2015 Year in Review
When I was a fact-checker at Wired magazine in the fall of 2007, one of our biggest competitors, Business 2.0, was abruptly shut down. We were both in San Francisco. We served much of the same readership. Wired had busted through the dot-com bubble mostly unscathed and was still standing, whereas others had not been so lucky. To me, it seemed like a clear win for our magazine. “Not exactly,” one of the top editors told me when I shared my enthusiasm. “Competition is always better for our field. It means we never stop trying to be better than the other guy.” I still squirm when I think how giddy I might’ve seemed at someone else’s misfortune, but the larger point stuck with me: Competition is always better.
That feeling really hit me this fall when ESPN decided to abruptly shut down Grantland, which was, for many people (though ultimately not enough), a daily source of intelligence (in what was covered) and awe (in how well it was written). That site was considered the safe haven in deeply reported, take-your-time, high-quality journalism, both for sports and culture. They had just scored their first National Magazine Awards nominations and more spots in the Best American Sports Writing anthology. And then? Poof. The site was gone. And beyond just the idea that sports journalism would suffer from this sudden decline in top-tier content (read: competition), I had many friends suddenly out of work. Some would be picked up by ESPN itself or find jobs with outlets smart enough to scoop ’em up fast. But others would invariably find themselves hitting the freelance world, which meant they were now, in some ways, my direct competition.
That’s a far cry from how this year started out for me. I had a very good full-time staff writer gig with one of the largest sports media companies on the planet … and I left that job. The reasons why are not entirely important, but we all reach a certain point at a job when not only do we know something isn’t going well but that there’s something better out there. (God, how long it took me to realize the distinction between the two.) So I took a gamble and hit the freelance trail, hoping that I could establish myself enough through one-off assignments and recurring writing gigs that someone would scoop me up. Meanwhile, every subsequent layoff at a major sports publication meant more pressure to stand out amongst a growing crowd of potential hires.
So far, so good, I suppose? I haven’t found a new job, but I’ve been fortunate enough to write for some amazing publications. I covered my first NBA Finals. I traveled for a story for the first time in a year. I invoiced for more money in Q4 than I would’ve made if I was still working at my old job, a fact that has my wife convinced I can stick out the freelance life long-term. But I still (perhaps somewhat foolishly) have my eyes on landing somewhere permanent. Freelancing means a great deal of freedom, but I often miss being part of a team and having a support structure in place. I miss having one or two single editors that I can bounce any ol’ stupid idea off. Freelancing is often a solitary life and maybe that’s something that will, as time goes on, become easier to accept. (Twitter, for all its immense faults, actually does help alleviate that disconnect.)
I feel like sports journalism is in a weird place. In a way, there are more places for eyeballs than ever before. New sites are actually popping up with regularity, so there are more opportunities to write. But there’s a sameness to all of it. You go to one site or another or a third and chances are you’re reading about the exact same issue or occurrence. Maybe that’s what I’ll miss most about Grantland, that it consistently stood out amidst the familiar headlines and breaking news and hot takes you could easily find at 20 other sites. A couple of years ago, I felt nothing but unbridled optimistic about where sportswriting was headed. Now? Not so much.
My personal goal for 2016 is to write less frequently (overall and specifically about sports) but in more substantive ways. When I write, I want it to be for those publications that are continually trying to do something different — the way Grantland did up until recently.
Anyway, here’s what I wrote this year that I really liked:
- I wrote about a ragtag group of Bay Area rugby players who dedicated their lives to becoming elite rowers and qualifying for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. I spent about three years working on this. It’s probably the best story I’ve ever published.
- Remember those little football phones that Sports Illustrated used to give away for free when you subscribed? I wrote about how those were created.
- I wrote about a massive Babe Ruth statue that went missing in the 1930s and whose whereabouts remain a mystery to this day.
- Did you know an American football team once won the Canadian Football League championship and then was immediately disbanded? I wrote about how and why that happened.
- I wrote about the weird history and enduring legacy of the original Space Jam website, which remains functioning and untouched after almost 20 years on the internet.
However my 2016 unfolds, I can only hope to write stories that are better than each of these.
