Episode 33: Will Leitch

The Sunday Long Read Podcast

Will Leitch founded Deadspin nearly 14 years ago. Since 2008, Leitch has written and worked outside of the site, most recently as a contributing editor at New York Magazine, a national correspondent for MLB, and the host of “The Will Leitch Show” on Sports Illustrated TV.

“…During the years I actively ran [Deadspin] — now more than a decade in the past — I was ostensibly in charge of figuring out what was coming next on the sports internet; I was the supposed leader of the blog-barbarians at the gate, all those bulls (and we were all bulls) running roughshod over the Traditional Sports Media…”

Don and Will discuss how Blacktable.com led to Deadspin.com, the Deadspin of today, Will's writing of today, and revisit the infamous and “rather festive” 2008 Costas NOW (HBO) discussion where Buzz Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights,” berated Will as being “…sort of like Jimmy Olsen on Percocet," and the sports blogosphere of the early aughts being “dedicated to cruelty … journalistic dishonesty, and … speed.” They’ve both come around since then.

Will lives in Athens, GA, has written four books (with a fifth on the way), and can be found on Twitter @williamfleitch.

• [0:28] Will Leitch newsletter
• [5:28] How to Raise a Boy: I’m not sure what to think about what my dad tried to teach me. So what should I teach my sons? (New York Magazine, 2018)
• [10:30] Sports on Earth: A Closing Tribute (Sports on Earth, 2018)
• [18:15] Blacktable.com
• [26:37] Laura Wagner
• [28:44] Megan Greenwell
• [29:17] Who Is We? (Deadspin, 2019)
• [29:26] What Fresh Hell Is Barstool Sports? (New York Magazine, 2018)
• [30:56] Licensing Company Authentic Brands in Talks to Buy Sports Illustrated for About $110 Million (WSJ, 2019)
• [30:56] New York Magazine Owner Explores Sale (WSJ, 2018)
• [31:42] Grierson & Leitch (Apple Podcasts)
• [46:46] The Secret Life of Pitchers (The Atlantic, 2017)
• [47:10] A Mound Of Troubles (New York Times Magazine, 2001)
• [48:59] "Internet Media” segment, “Costas NOW” (HBO, April 29, 2008)
• [48:59] Our Conversation With Buzz Bissinger (Deadspin, 2008)
• [48:59] Buzz, Bob, Projectile Spittle and Me (New York Magazine, 2009)
• [49:50] Buzz Bissinger (New York Magazine)
• [53:28] Play Magazine (New York Times)
• [54:30] "God Save the Fan" (HarperCollins)
• [59:13] Twitter Is Driving Everybody Insane (Especially Darren Rovell) (Deadspin, 2011)
• [1:00:40] David Wallace-Wells' “The Uninhabitable Earth” (Tim Duggan Books)
• [1:01:55] Vicki Michaelis
• [1:02:05] Historic Kentucky barns are being stripped by thieves to fuel farmhouse-chic trend (Louisville Courier Journal)